Eddie Jackson

[adam]

Jackson has a cap hit of $5M this year, which balloons to $15M in 2022, and would be a dead cap of $18.5M as a cut or $8.9M as a post-June 1 cut ($6.1M in savings). 

In 2023, he has a cap hit of $17M and dead cap of $9.5M. So there are some options. The Bears could go the post-June 1 cut route in 2022, then save the $6.1M for in-season moves or allow it to roll over into 2023. That way he is off the roster as soon as possible with minimal impact on the cap. If they keep him, then he eats up $15M next year and a roster spot, which seems worse to me. I would rather eat $8.9M and have a roster spot for an actual player while saving $6.1M for in-season or rollover dollars. I doubt anyone trades for that albatross of a contract. Most guys making league minimum at Safety are outperforming Jackson.

So I was looking back at his stats and at first I thought the clear cliff drop-off occurred after his injury and it did. However, there was one small stretch that really earned him that big paycheck. So his career really has 3 periods:

The Young Starter, from his rookie year, until the middle of his second season. He played in 23 games over this period, and was playing as a solid starter, but nothing too special.

2017 > Week 7, 2018
23 games
10 PD
4 INT
2 TD
 

Then he went All-Pro Tecmo Bowl mode, like a stretch of games only future HoFers have. Check out his next 7 games, which ended with that Rodgers INT and injury:

Weeks 8-14, 2018
7 games
11 PD
5 INT
3 TD
 

Now the drop-off. The Practice Squad Fodder period. The crazy part is Pace paid him AFTER 2019, which was after 16 games of this crap:

2019 > Current
38 games
10 PD
2 INT (Off of Blough and Mannion both end of game Hail Mary/bombs)
1 TD

So he had more passes defended in a 7 game window in 2018 than he has had in his last 38 games, 38! He had 5 INTs in 7 games and only has 2 in his last 38. He doesn't have a single PD this year and only 10 in his last 38 games. It is absolutely insane the cliff this guy fell off performance-wise. 

I don't blame Pace fully as they were hoping for more of that 7 game stretch, but his pay jumped up way too high after an average 2019. He still owns the 5th biggest Safety contract behind only Adams, Smith, Simmons, and Baker. At most, they should've signed him to a top 10 slot, not top 5. 

[AZ54]

Can't throw good money after bad.  He'll be gone next year post Jun 1 and, as you say, we can use the $6.1 mil to find someone who will contribute more.   He's not the first guy to get a big payday and then stop being a football player.  I supported the move to extend Jackson's contract at the time as we had space available and it seemed to get in early before it got way overboard.  Yet here we are throwing life preservers off the deck to salvage whatever we can.  

[Stinger226]

When a player plays well, we all jump on the bandwagon and say Pay him. This is an example why that is not always a good idea. 

[ASHKUM BEAR]

Tell him he is in charge of Club Dub and creating the end zone dances.  Maybe he will start making plays again. 

[adam]

I was in favor of an extension as well, assumed it was a no brainer, but looking back deeper into the game logs, I was surprised to see his "real" production was only over a 7 week period, which was unsustainable anyway. However, that made his season and career stats to that point look so much better. 

Also, this is not just a one-year drop-off. This is year 3 into the Mariana Trench.

[Mongo3451]

14 hours ago, adam said:

I don't blame Pace fully as they were hoping for more of that 7 game stretch, but his pay jumped up way too high after an average 2019. He still owns the 5th biggest Safety contract behind only Adams, Smith, Simmons, and Baker. At most, they should've signed him to a top 10 slot, not top 5. 

As much as I hate Pace, this one was a proper and smart extension.

[adam]

Just now, ASHKUM BEAR said:

Tell him he is in charge of Club Dub and creating the end zone dances.  Maybe he will start making plays again. 

Lol.

Someone on Twitter said that he is not making plays because the other teams are avoiding him, which is comically false. The same guy said that Safeties are not paid to tackle, another chucklefest. 

The first thing Safeties need to do is tackle, then the playmakers either get INTs and PDs, or Sacks and TFLs, depending where they line up. Jackson has literally done none of those since 2018.

[adam]

Just now, Mongo3451 said:

As much as I hate Pace, this one was a proper and smart extension.

Oh yeah, not at the time. The mistake was letting Amos go the offseason before. That predicated this signing. They almost had no choice. Clinton-Dix was way worse than expected, and you couldn't go into the next season needing both safeties. However, the right move would've been signing Amos, then getting a comp pick for Jackson, but no way was that ever going to happen.

[adam]

In place of Jackson, DHC had a pretty good game all things considered (defense being overall terrible). What is crazy to me is with his limited playing time all season, DHC is now 5th on the team in tackles, tied for 2nd in Passes Defended (3), and tied for 1st with INT (1). That shows two things, one he has been above average, two, the overall defense outside of Smith, Jackson, Quinn, and Mack have been terrible.

[AZ54]

4 hours ago, adam said:

In place of Jackson, DHC had a pretty good game all things considered (defense being overall terrible). What is crazy to me is with his limited playing time all season, DHC is now 5th on the team in tackles, tied for 2nd in Passes Defended (3), and tied for 1st with INT (1). That shows two things, one he has been above average, two, the overall defense outside of Smith, Jackson, Quinn, and Mack have been terrible.

For the money we're paying him and his part-time status of 50-75% of defensive snaps, Ogletree has been good.    He has 27 solo tackles vs. 26 for Jackson.   He also has 3 passes defensed vs. 0 for Jackson.    

[adam]

7 hours ago, AZ54 said:

For the money we're paying him and his part-time status of 50-75% of defensive snaps, Ogletree has been good.    He has 27 solo tackles vs. 26 for Jackson.   He also has 3 passes defensed vs. 0 for Jackson.    

Yeah Ogletree has been good value. 

[adam]

Into the bye, one of these guys is getting paid as a top 5 Safety, the other basically making the vet minimum and plays special teams:

Jackson - 460 snaps, 40 tackles, 0 INT, 0 PD

DHC - 295 snaps, 31 tackles, 1 INT, 3 PD, 1 TD on ST

I know some of the media have pointed to the absence of Jackson as a reason for the defense's recent struggles, but they held PIT to 280 total yards? If not for the zebras, the Bears win by 20. The SF game was bad and a terrible game called by Desai, he got schooled by Shanahan, didn't neutralize Deebo, and was ill-prepared for the screen game which gashed them. None of that had anything to do with Jackson. It was not like he was going to tackle Samuel on that long play anyway. 
 

The biggest hole on defense is Vildor. He has made a few plays, but has been a reception machine allowing a league-high passer rating of 150.3 when targeted. Shelley on the other hand stood out against PIT, so hopefully he can lock in that Slot Corner position. Looking at roster composition, on defense, CB2 is probably a bigger need than Safety right now. You can't have one player take down the entire defense on almost every other play like Vildor has done.