TENARD JACKSON

[The Franchi5e]

Some of you are just ridiculous with your evaluations of our players. Cody Grimm had a few nice games as a fill-in starter but I can't see him as a starting safety in this league. Corey Lynch, Larry Asante and Sean Jones? No. I think Asante has some potential and Jones is solid as a stop-gap but we need Tanard Jackson. It's funny that some of you forget he was our BEST defensive player no questions asked in 2009 as just a second year player. He's one of the top safetys in the entire league and there's no receiver that wants to catch a ball across the middle with Tanard Jackson coming straight for them. If you put Tanard with Rahim Moore as our starting safetys (Grimm and Jones/Asante backing them up) with Talib and this guy that's going to be a free agent this summer (Biggers, Ronde and Myron backing them up) and Raheem coaching them.....I think we have the scariest secondary in the entire league.

Nobody considered TJax special outside of Tampa. He had his moments and a few hard hits, but he was also out of position a lot and had more missed tackles than Sabby in 2009. He looked like crap the first three weeks of 2010, and with his repeated suspensions he is obviously not a dependable piece to build around.

Cody Grimm is far from a sure thing. He could struggle next year, but in 2010 he looked like a guy that could start at SS for us for the next ten years. Other than the big TD reception he gave up in his first start, he made very few mistakes and many great plays. He and Barber were our best tacklers by far. I'm sorry you don't see that. I think you are the one that has ridiculous evaluations of our players.

Nobody thought Tanard Jackson was anything special outside of Tampa!? Bro every single top 10 rankings of safetys I saw heading into 2009 had Tanard on it. One of them I even saw him at number 3 overall and most of them had him top 5. It's not his fault he was playing next to Sabby Piscitelli and had a garbage ass defensive line that 9 times out of 10 would make him have to tackle the opposing team's runningback with a full head of steam. Almost nobody that he was playing with will be with the team next year except Talib. There's a ton of young talent on the defense now that wasn't there when he was making plays by himself. Our offense was also atrocious when he last was on the field and the defense always had to play from behind. Tanard WILL be making plays for the Tampa Bay Buccaneers next season, Raheem knows the talent Tanard has. And I've also heard it's just weed. Sorry to break you guys hearts but close to 80 percent of pro athletes smoke weed. Whether it's on a daily basis or what, I don't know. But I do know plenty of professional and college (I run D-1 college track) that smoke weed. Usually the trainers or whoever know about it prior to when they're testing and tell the athlete a day in advance so they can get the detox. In T-Jax's case I don't know what the problem is. Maybe he just thought they wouldn't care and would vouch for him that he didn't test positive for anything. There's cases that go undetected like that in college every single day. But a year away from football and losing a TON of money has to be life changing for him. I'm willing to bet he's an entirely different person because of it and I'm expecting a huge year out of him next season as a Buc.

[JDouble]

Please, post some links to these rankings that had Tanard in the top 10 of all safeties. You say there were many...I'd bet you can't find one. It's nonsense.

As far as it just being weed, that is 100% fabrication on your part. None of us know if it was just weed. You are posting your assumptions as fact. He could have been hooked on Oxycontin, or doing coke, or meth, or anything. You have no idea.

[The Franchi5e]

That was 2 years ago and I'm not going to go searching all over google for it. But outside of Polamalu, Ed Reed, Nick Collins, Otogwe, Eric Berry and Adrian Wilson I wouldn't take anyone else over Tanard.

[Blaze688]

That was 2 years ago and I'm not going to go searching all over google for it.

Translation: "I'm full of **CENSORED** and making baseless statements."

Nobody outside of Tampa knows how good Tanard Jackson was.

[Blaze688]

In fact, here are several lists I Google'd, ranging from 2009 - 2010:

http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/2600697/_nfls_five_best_safeties_of_2009.html?cat=14
http://www.the-top-tens.com/lists/top-nfl-safeties-2009.asp
http://bleacherreport.com/articles/219643-safety-first-the-nfls-top-10-safeties (he doesn't even make the honorable mention on this fan's list)
http://www.nfltouchdown.com/top-7-safeties-in-the-nfl/
http://www.the-top-tens.com/lists/top-nfl-safeties-2009.asp
http://www.2minutestomidnightgreen.com/2009/07/top-five-best-safeties-in-nfl.html
http://www.sportingnews.com/nfl/story/2009-05-27/safety-rankings-reed-polamalu-are-pure-playmakers (Jermaine Phillips made this list.  Nice.)
http://fifthdown.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/04/17/best-safeties-in-the-n-f-l-the-top-10-list/
http://www.nfl.com/videos/nfl-network-total-access/09000d5d8111c942/Top-5-Safeties
http://nflspinzone.com/2010/05/24/the-top-five-best-safeties-in-the-nfl-heading-into-2010-season/

That's seriously every respectable list I came across on the first five pages of a "best NFL safeties 2009" search.  Tanard wasn't mentioned once.

[Detrimental]

Jackson had an elite rookie season year but after that he regressed. Borderline top 10 safety at best.

[Blaze688]

He also had a pretty solid 2009, considering he missed 4 games.  Before this most recent suspension, I'd probably rank him in the top ten, league-wide.

[Detrimental]

He also had a pretty solid 2009, considering he missed 4 games.  Before this most recent suspension, I'd probably rank him in the top ten, league-wide.

Coverage wise he was good but in 2009 he missed more tackles per game than Sabby did.

He is a 1 dimensional safety but its hard to find elite coverage FS's so he's still up there.

[PassThePigSkin]

Jackson had an elite rookie season year but after that he regressed. Borderline top 10 safety at best.

When did that happen? he had better numbers in 08 and 09 than he did his rookie year.  5 ints in 12 games? if he can get it together I can see this DB team being top 5 material.

[Detrimental]

Jackson had an elite rookie season year but after that he regressed. Borderline top 10 safety at best.

When did that happen? he had better numbers in 08 and 09 than he did his rookie year.  5 ints in 12 games? if he can get it together I can see this DB team being top 5 material.

He missed fewer tackles his rookie year and his % caught on in 2007 was better than 08 and 09.

[JDouble]

I still say anyone who thinks TJax was ever considered Top 10 to anyone outside of Tampa is delusional, but I will say this, he had his great moments and if it was the drug problem that was keeping him from being consistently great, then he could come back clean and be great. That's a big if though.

The reality is he has played in 15 games in the last two seasons and hasn't looked very good since 2008. He is now 27 years old and his window is closing. If he's going to be anything special he better come back in perfect shape and the right state of mind. I think he's a long shot and we need to move forward with the mind set that he isn't going to be here. If he does come back strong then we are just that much better off, but we can't depend on him for 2011.

[PassThePigSkin]

Jackson had an elite rookie season year but after that he regressed. Borderline top 10 safety at best.

When did that happen? he had better numbers in 08 and 09 than he did his rookie year.  5 ints in 12 games? if he can get it together I can see this DB team being top 5 material.

He missed fewer tackles his rookie year and his % caught on in 2007 was better than 08 and 09.

Tackle wise yes I agree. But all around production only got better. I think most of his missed tackles also come from the play of other people around him. When your safety barely hits double digits in ast that mean he was the last defense on a run play, so a lot could be said about his missed tackles.

[dbucfan]

Missing tackles is an individual stat. 

[Detrimental]

Exactly

[thanson]

Although I like the guy, I think he is the odd man out.