Donte Jackson might be a rookie, but he doesn’t feel like one. After being drafted in the second round only a few months ago, Jackson said in his introductory press conference that he played with a chip on his shoulder, that his 5’11, 174-pound frame wouldn’t stop him from succeeding in the NFL the same way he succeeded at LSU.
“I’m all football. Yeah I’m fast, but my mentality and my toughness and my confidence and my swagger is all there, it’s all football,” Jackson said in April. “You know, that’s one thing I like to pride myself on. I never really liked to listen to people say I’m too small because I’ve been listening to that my whole life and it just adds fuel to the fire.”
And that swagger has certainly translated from the draft board to the practice fields, as he will be challenging current starter Kevon Seymour for a heated battle on the outside for a starting cornerback slot opposite James Bradberry – Seymour may have gotten the first reps with the first team, but Jackson got his share during Thursday night’s practice session at Gibbs Stadium, the first NFL practice of Jackson’s young career. But first-team reps in a July practice don’t mean much – does the rookie, whose baby daughter was just born on Father’s Day, expect to start Week 1 against the Dallas Cowboys?
“Is that my expectation? Most definitely,” Jackson said after practice. “I didn’t come out here for no other thing. That’s what it’s going to be – I’m going to compete until that Week 1 and I’m going to keep going until I get that job.”
“[I’m] just trying to grasp the system as much as I can – I feel like the coaches are going to wait until I’m more than comfortable with the system before they try to throw me out there, but they put me in and out [of] there a lot, I’m just really trying to just go slowly and take it day by day.”
He was joined on the first-team defense by third-round pick Rashaan Gaulden during some reps, and while Gaulden and Jackson are linked currently as they both vie for playing time in their rookie year, more parallels will be drawn between Jackson and the guy drafted in the round ahead of him as he and DJ Moore will almost certainly be matched up against each other multiple times throughout camp.
“That’s my guy, DJ,” Jackson said about his quieter counterpart, adding that the LSU product is usually doing most of the talking on the field instead of Moore. “When we’re out here, when we get in front of each other, we try to hold the joking around in before we try to get a good rep – but that’s my dude, that’s my guy, we always try to make each other better since rookie mini-camp, me and him have been trying to compete against each other and make each other better and that’s what we’ve been doing.”
Jackson said after practice that while it was exciting to get out and practice in front of the fans, something he’d never done in his college career, when it comes down to it, it’s just football – and just because he’s in the NFL and on the same field as burners like Damiere Byrd and Curtis Samuel doesn’t mean he’s willing to take any criticism over his greatest asset – his speed. Now that he lined up against Byrd, does Jackson think he’s still the fastest guy on the team?
“I never think I’m not the fastest guy on the team.”
