Will Malik Jackson’s new lease on football life pay off for the Eagles? | Jeff McLane

It’s been a while since Malik Jackson’s reputation as a premier defensive tackle preceded him. In fact, almost two years.

In 2017, he was chosen for his first Pro Bowl, but in prior years he was considered one of the best pass rushing interior lineman in the NFL.

The 2018 season, though, was when Jackson’s star seemingly started to fall. He lost his starting spot with the Jaguars and in the following offseason was released. Even the Eagles’ signing of the free agent to a three-year, $30 million contract didn’t come with any guarantee that he would recapture his former glory.

Jackson still had to prove that he would excel in a scheme the Eagles believed would play to his strengths. But that answer never came – at least last season it didn’t. He played only 32 snaps before leaving the opener with a season-ending Lisfranc foot fracture.

The 30-year-old veteran is back, however, mindful of the perception he must alter if he’s to justify the Eagles’ significant original investment.

“I have some ground to make up, especially if I can go back all the way to my last year in Jacksonville,” Jackson said recently following a training camp practice. “Got benched a little bit there, then came here and got injured. I’m not going to say [outsiders] forgot about me, but I think I just have some ground to make up and make people remember.”

Jackson doesn’t necessarily have to put up big sack numbers. He was acquired, in part, to give Fletcher Cox a wing man who could draw double teams away from the perennial All-Pro defensive tackle. But the Eagles added more heft to the interior of their line when they signed Javon Hargrave to a three-year, $39 million contract in March.

If Jackson was looking for motivation, he could find it in the Hargrave acquisition. But there are plenty of snaps to go around, especially if defensive coordinator Jim Schwartz sticks to a three-man rotation. And if Jackson has seemed more active and animated this camp as opposed to last, it’s because he has glimpsed the other side of life without football.

“You can see his excitement,” Schwartz said. “Maybe it would be a little bit different if he had played 17 games last year and went out, but he’s excited. He’s got that sort of almost a rookie excitement about being out there every day because he realized how quickly it can be taken away from you.”

The player rebounding from injury who is grateful for another chance is a camp cliche, but what makes Jackson’s story interesting is that he also, aside from gaining an appreciation for what was lost, enjoyed getting a taste of his post-NFL existence.

“It really was able to allow me to be a dad and see what that’s truly about and trying to find myself and see what hobbies I like,” Jackson said. “I’ve been doing this pretty much my whole life, so I don’t even know what I like to do, what made me smile. So it was nice to find things like that out.

“I never want to take a break, but to have to take a break and then to just embrace it in kind of enclosed periods and allow me to step away and kind of collect myself and not be here, it really helped me, I think, become a total person.”

Jackson invested more time with his toddler daughter Nahla and became even more engaged in social issues in the Black community. He has been at the forefront of Eagles organizational discussions on systemic racism following the deaths of Breonna Taylor and George Floyd at the hands of police, and most recently the shooting of Jacob Blake.

But the time away also convinced Jackson that he still had much to accomplish in football.

“It opened my eyes to what more I want to do in this game,” he said.

Jackson did a lot in his first seven seasons, especially for a former fifth-round draft pick. He won a Super Bowl with the Broncos in 2015. Became the highest-paid defensive tackle in the NFL the following offseason. And made the aforementioned Pro Bowl after recording a career-high eight sacks in 2017.

It’s easy to forget what an accomplished inside force he was and can still be. From 2013 to 2018, he averaged 5.3 sacks, 9.2 tackles for losses, and 3.8 batted passes per season.

Jackson was, if anything, reliable. No other defensive tackle played in as many games, including the playoffs, over that span, and his 107 consecutive games played was second only to Ndamukong Suh.

And then he landed awkwardly on his left foot against Washington last September and his season was essentially over before it even started.

“When you say he missed most of the season, 15 out of 16, or 16 out of 17, it fits the standard of most,” Schwartz said. “Malik did a great job last year of staying active with our team. Even though he was injured, he did his rehab here. He was in our meetings. He still served a role on our team and I was really impressed by that.”

Jackson offered as much wisdom as he could to the others who tried to fill his role. But Tim Jernigan, Hassan Ridgeway, et al. weren’t effective enough to consistently free up Cox, who never seemed at full strength following his own foot surgery.

Eagles defensive tackles collectively notched only 7½ sacks, 24 tackles for losses, and 48 quarterback hits in 2019. In the year before, which had convinced the Eagles they needed more interior help, defensive tackles finished with 14 sacks, 23 tackles for losses, and 96 hits.

But the signing of Jackson was also meant to offset the loss of inside-outside defensive lineman Michael Bennett, who was traded, and to keep defensive end Brandon Graham from having to rush inside on passing downs.

Cox and Jackson give the Eagles two of the longer-bodied defensive tackles in the league and allow them to collapse the pocket and push quarterbacks toward Graham, Derek Barnett, and other edge rushers.

“He’s in the quarterback’s way an awful lot because he is so long, and he can be a different kind of match-up from some of our other defensive tackles on those guards,” Schwartz said. “He can get on some edges inside and he also has the ability to swing inside and outside.”

Jackson said he prefers to play inside at the three-technique, but he’s willing to bump outside. Camp has mostly offered a preview of what the interior will look like with both starters healthy. Hargarve suffered a pectoral muscle strain before camp but should be ready by the opener Sept. 13.

“I just feel like today me and Malik kind of picked up where we left off from that first game last year,” Cox said after the first practice of camp. “He’s healthy right now, and when we get [Javon] back, it should be good depth right there in the rotation.”

Jackson’s contributions extend beyond the field. He’s a willing teacher and positive influence for younger players, according to Ridgeway. He’s among the leaders on the Eagles’ Social Justice Committee. And he always has a smile on his face.

“I know this: He brings my spirits up every day,” Schwartz said. “You see him around the office. I mean, obviously you guys have seen it. He’s just a guy that is embracing every day and taking advantage of every day, and he does it with such enthusiasm.”