Why should we believe it will be any different for wide receiver DeSean Jackson this time with the Eagles? How can somebody who was so high-maintenance the first time around fit so well with the championship culture coach Doug Pederson and his veteran players have cultivated?
Their answers, according to his coaches and teammates, are provided every day with the work example he sets and his enthusiasm for helping young receivers.
Besides, in his five seasons away from the Eagles, Jackson’s priorities have changed. He’s been paid nearly $100 million over NFL career, so a big contract is not a major issue. He has two children now and a more stable life away from football. And he learned that his body doesn’t recover the way it used to naturally, so he has learned to do certain things with workouts and nutrition.
“I could just wake up out of my bed and go run,” Jackson said of his early days in the league. “I always used to say, `cheetahs don’t stretch,’ and I look at myself as a cheetah. But now I’m a little older and these joints, they hurt a little more, so I had to get out there a little more and take care of my body a little more.”
All Jackson, 32, wants at this stage of his life is a ring, and it’s clear that he knows returning to the team that drafted him in 2008 gives him his best chance since … 2008.
That rookie season represented the only one in which Jackson advanced in the playoffs. The Eagles made it to the NFC Championship Game but fell to the Arizona Cardinals and didn’t win another postseason game until January 2018.
Jackson is still looking for another playoff victory, having experienced more than twice as many postseason losses (five) as wins (two).
He was so close so early and then never again.
“It’s why I’m back,” Jackson said. “We have the team, we have the quarterback and we have the coach.”
Jackson never wanted to leave, but he was jettisoned by former coach Chip Kelly after producing what remains as career highs in catches (82), receiving yards (1,332) and touchdowns (nine) in the 2013 season around an hour before a scathing report by NJ.com linking him to gang activity was posted online.
The team denied the report, which it knew about before releasing Jackson, had anything to do with its decision.
Around a month later, members of the organization leaked details of behavioral problems that led to Jackson’s release. They included arriving late to and falling asleep at meetings, clashing with then-receivers coach Bob Bicknell and overall selfishness.
Jackson was bitter at the time.
Now?
“It’s no hard feelings,” Jackson insisted upon his return. “At the end of the day, I understand this is a business and things happen in this business. As a young kid coming from Los Angeles, California, obviously if I could sit here and tell you I was going to write out this story for it to be this way, I probably wouldn’t have told you that. But the biggest thing I can say is you move forward in your life.
“After every step you take, you can’t go backwards, and that’s just how I live my life. I want to provide for my family and do everything I can to take care of them.”
Jackson brings a resume that includes nearly 600 receptions for more than 10,000 career yards. He’s led the league in yards per reception four times, including last year.
That’s a big reason why quarterback Carson Wentz has embraced him from the start, and backup Nate Sudfeld already had a good relationship with Jackson from their time together in Washington.
The DeSean Jackson that has returned to the Eagles is a more patient one as well. He’s not concerned that he’s barely seen the field during the preseason, and it’s doubtful he’ll ever complain anymore about not getting the ball enough.
“September 8 is what matters to everyone in the building,” he said. “You have to start the season off right, and to do that, you have to go through the process. I’m 12 years in, man, so the preseason obviously is for the guys who are trying to make the team and for the guys who need the reps.
“Veteran players are a little different. They just want to get to the real thing.”
This DeSean Jackson is more equipped than ever for the real thing and the inevitable adversity that comes with any season because he cares now only about what it takes to get to the top. He can help cut through obstacles that have blocked his teams because he’s encountered them all before.
All he wants is a ring, and no way is he going to mess this up this time.
Morning Call reporter Nick Fierro can be reached at 610-778-2243 or nfierro@mcall.com.
