ALL TWENTY-TUESDAY: BUCS WR DESEAN JACKSON

The signing of now Tampa Bay Buccaneers wide receiver DeSean Jackson wasn’t shocking in and of itself. The Bucs have signed plenty of big name players over the past five or six years – even before the Jason Licht Era – to try to make Tampa Bay a football destination for the league’s top players.

So, it’s not unusual for signings like this to happen. It’s unusually for them to work out with any sort of consistency.

Look at most of the Buccaneers’ top players – Jameis Winston, Gerald McCoy, Lavonte David, Kwon Alexander, Mike Evans. All of those guys were drafted players.

You know whose names you don’t see? You don’t see the names of Darrelle Revis, Dashon Goldson, Eric Wight, Michael Bennett and Michael Johnson. All players who either came or went via the free agency period (some in trades) that have given Bucs fans a reason to be wary of how the organization handles their cap space during the month of March.

But, as of late, the tides have begun to turn. Vincent Jackson was a top-notch signing back in 2012, a move that really started it all. Clinton McDonald has proven to be well worth his signing the year after, in 2013. Following two lull periods during the Lovie Smith years, signing both Brent Grimes and Robert Ayers in 2016 once again lit the spark of change for Tampa Bay.

Bucs WR DeSean Jackson – Photo by Cliff Welch/PR

That brings us to this year, a year and a free agent signing class that is meant to have an efficient and immediate impact in year one as to help get this team to the playoffs, a place that has been all too foreign for the Buccaneers faithful since the glory days of the Jon Gruden and the Tampa 2 defense.

The man that will be leading the charger from this free agency class is, in fact, Jackson.

Since 2008, Jackson’s 112 receptions of 25+ yards, 37 receptions of 50+ yards and 17.7 yards per reception average (min. 60 career catches) all lead the NFL. The 37 catches of 50+ yards are 14 more than any other player during that span, while his five 1,000-yard receiving seasons and 32 100-yard receiving games are each tied for the fifth-most. Additionally, his per catch averages in 2010 (22.5) and 2014 (20.9) rank second and fourth, respectively, among all single seasons over that nine-year period.

For an offense that was down to starting Russell Shepard (a career special teams player) as their No. 2 wide receiver by the end of the year with Brandon Myers as the starting pass-catching tight end with Freddie Martino as the team’s primary backup receiver, those numbers – and more importantly, hope – should be welcomed with open arms.

But, the signing of Jackson isn’t just about the production itself; it’s about how it is accumulated. That’s what makes Jackson such a good signing for this team and this offense.

When people think of Jackson, they think of the long, 50-yard post route over the middle where he out-runs a corner back from the outside to put his team in field goal range and spark the offense out of nowhere. Jackson has come to Tampa Bay to do that, but the misconception of that kind of skill is that Jackson will simply be used to sprint down the field every play and either catch a bomb pass or make room for Mike Evans.

Sometimes, that will be the case, looking into Jackson’s 2016 season, we can verify that the Bucs aren’t getting just a speed receiver, they’re getting one of the most complete receivers in football.

Space: The Final Frontier

Washington’s game against Pittsburgh gave us some great tape on how Jackson can be used as a weapon matching up against a 3-4 defense. In the play above, the Steelers come out in their 3-4 front, but a nickel variation of that with by sliding one of their defensive backs down into the box and playing Cover 1 with only one single-high safety for the deep zone. Normally, this is used in an obvious run situation, as you can see Washington having some extra help on their offensive line and only two receivers.

In this play, Jackson is the receiver at the top of your screen. There’s no defensive back immediately in front of him, which, because of the look of the defense, give away the zone coverage. Here’s how it played out.

It ended up not being a run play as the tight end to the top of your screen released right up the middle. Because of that, both linebackers had to backpedal into position about five or eight yards deep. This left Jackson wide open on a shallow crossing route, which quarterback Kirk Cousins recognized early. He was able to get the ball in Jackson’s hands as soon as possible, and allowed his foot speed to do the rest against defender who were flat-footed in their zones watching him run by. 

Here we’re going to see that same type of route from Jackson (though this cross isn’t a shallow, it’s more of a deep cross), but this time it’s going up against Dallas’ 4-3 defense to show the success against both fronts.

In this play, Jackson is the outside man in the trips formation at the top. Washington loves to use this look when getting Jackson the ball because he’s so good at recognizing where open space is going to be and how to get there.

Because Jackson knows the play action is coming to the opposite side of where he is running, he knows the linebacker is going to move in that direction. he also could predict that the only player who could possible cover him at that point would be the safety, who he would most likely out-run anyways. 

Jackson wastes no time getting from outside of the trips setup and into open space by weaving through players going different directions. This allowed him to find his open space immediately, and if the ball would’ve been thrown to him sooner, we would’ve been looking at a much bigger again.

This is an area of Jackson’s game that is really underrated. Yes, some plays and routes are designed well to get guys into open space, but Jackson does it so well on his own, that when you combine it with a good design, it’s almost impossible to stop. Even when fully healthy, Tampa didn’t have any option like this on their team last season. Adam Humphries is nice in space for quick routes, but as you can see there’s just another element to having Jackson’s athletic ability, along with that great mental processing to find open space – that’s what being a good wide receiver is all about, getting open in a variety of ways.

You’ll notice this in multiple instances as this film review goes on, but Jackson is an incredibly savvy route running. Most people think that there is only one kind of good route runner, one who makes quick, explosive cuts and separates via change of direction (like Oakland’s Amari Cooper, for example). But, Jackson is also a good route runner, just in a more sophisticated way. 

When you watch Jackson’s tape, he appears to round a lot of his routes; it’s not straight one way and the straight the other. It looks a bit unconventional when you first see it, but it’s done on purpose, and is really what makes Jackson so great.

In the play above, the safety is well positioned and fully keyed on whichever direction Jackson could go. So, in turn, Jackson had to create space for himself. He did that by rounding his route to the outside, flipping his hips and head one way to hold the safety there, then moved back inside and made a strong catch. 

You’ll notice that no part of that route was sharp in its cuts, but it was still effective in creating separation and keeping the time it took for the defender to get there long enough for him to make the catch. To me, that’s sophisticated route running.

You Play Off, He Goes Off

One way defenses try to counter or contain Jackson’s speed is with off coverage. The thought here is that if  you give a corner a little more room to read and react, they can keep Jackson in front of them and not get beat in a footrace if a 9-route (go route) is called.

However, Jackson has his ways of beating that, too. 

The play above comes from a much more traditional Cover 2 look from the 3-4 formation against the Steelers, and it gives us good insight into how Jackson wins against zone coverage.

The above video is actually two plays in a row, so make sure you watch both.

The defensive design above is meant to be a high-low zone. The cornerback on the outside is going to cover his fraction of the field from about 10 yards on, and the outside linebacker near the line of scrimmage is suppose to shuffle over to his right to cover anything in the flats or short comebacks. The problem is, Jackson is way too quick for it.

How fast a receiver can move his hips goes a long way into how deceptive they can be in their routes, and how quickly they can separate on any kind of route that has them turn to look back at the line of scrimmage. For bigger receivers (guys who are 6-foot-2 and taller), this can be a tough task, it’s just a lot more mass to move. That’s why it’s rare when you see players like Julio Jones and Calvin Johnson do it so easily. But for the 5-foot-10, 175-pound Jackson, turning his entire body around can be done almost instantly.

That’s why when you play off coverage with zone, Jackson’s win percentage is so high. Most of the time, the shuffling player can’t drop to his zone fast enough, and even if Jackson would’ve gone a little farther, the corner would have been able to close on him quick enough either.

Against a 3-4, this is money. 

The play above is another look at Jackson’s success versus off coverage, but this time it comes form him playing in the slot.

Slot corner is such a difficult position to play in today’s NFL. It’s becoming the norm to place your best receiver in the slot as to maximize their space to work with, and due to most corners being trained to stick to one side of the their, there isn’t much shadow coverage going on when that happens. So, that leaves either the nickel corner or a dropping safety the duty of now lining up against the team’s No. 1.

Think about this logically, most of the time, nickel corners aren’t trained press coverage experts. because of the way the history of slot corners has been, some can hold their own, but there are far more corners who stay off receivers and just try to limit their catches by waiting to see where they break ad use recovery speed to catch up. That works for most receivers; it doesn’t work when covering Jackson.

In the play above, all Jackson does is move move up four yards, which was enough to make the defender start to backpedal. Once he see that, he was able to stop and turn his body in three steps to square up for the catch. 

It doesn’t seem like a lot, but these are the kinds of catches that get first downs, create manageable situations and sustain drives, another element of the buccaneers offense that was far too hot-and-cold in 2016.

Find My Deep Ball (Tracking)

I don’t think I can stress this enough: tracking the ball in the air is such an important trait for a deep-ball receiver. Think about how scarce it is to find players in the NFL (the highest level of football athleticism) who have the speed to separate and stretch the field against defense. Now realize that there are even fewer of those player who have the awareness and concentration to track and adjust to passes that are in flight 40-50 yards.

In the play above you see some of that rounded route running I talked about earlier. Jackson starts his skinny post route by moving his defender to the sideline, the turns back in (not on a dime) with newly created space thanks to how he ran the route to that point. But, as is often the case with long passes, Cousins was a bit off on his target and timing with how Jackson ran his route. Most receivers can’t get away with rounding route in and out like that, but Jackson can.

Here was an even better example of that later in the season against the Eagles.

This was the same exact route as before, but the throw was even more off. As Jackson came back to the inside, Cousins let the ball go. However, his throw was off, and wasn’t going to be able to be caught in stride. As we see more often than not, receivers either keep running their route and fail to adjust, or just don’t have the concentration to switch shoulders, look up, and haul in the catch. Jackson did all three in the play above, and those characteristics are more dependent variables to being a successful deep-ball receiver than just having speed.

Are You Strong? We Strong Then

So you have the speed to get to where you need to go, you have the ability to adjust to a pass while its in there, but the last question is the most important one: Can you hang on?

When playing that far down the field, receivers are often going up against defender who are moving at their top speed. That means that, at the collision point, it’s going to take a strong effort at times to go form “ohhh, almost had it” to “All right, field goal range with a chance for six.”

It’s hard to believe that Jackson has the catching strength he does at his measureables. The play above is an example of a few plays I saw from him this season where I couldn’t believe he hung on to a pass. As Jackson ran his route, he knew all he had to do was get the best of the safety, but he also knew that included taking his hit. He did so, and it lead to points.

A lot of people think that wide receivers are just divas. They’re the players that do all the dancing, the showboating and, more importantly, the complaining. Jackson does all three of those things out of the confidence that he has in his abilities. He’s be the one to get in a defender’s face. He’s make sure you know he just burnt you for a touchdown if he does, and he’ll have his words with the officials every now and then. But of the receiver that do those things, the only ones that last are the ones that can also make plays when the tough times call.

New Bucs WR DeSean Jackson – Photo by: Getty Images

I’m not saying the receivers should recklessly put themselves in danger when going over the middle – in fact, that’s another part of Jackson’s game that’s noteworthy: not taking unnecessary hits. But, when jackson’s number is called over the middle, much like the play above, he shows up grabs the ball, takes the hit, gets up and walks back for the next play more often than you’d think a “deep-ball, speedster receiver” should.

All of those aspects of his game are what led Jackson to have the career he’s had to this point. And the confidence that he can continue to do that is what gives this signing the potential to be as good as any the Buccaneers organization has ever had.