Originally posted by Joecool:
The only thing Jackson doesn't do is a slant. Teams don't play him 20 yards back because he kills them with the screen pass or quick hitches that he turns into big plays. He is effective everywhere on the field which causes teams to help with FS over the top. We have Vernon who requires similar coverage over the top. Braylon is a top level deep threat. He isn't the best but he's in or right there with the top 10.
How many deep pass have you seen us attempt? I haven't seen many. The CLE game, we threw deep the most and most of them were open but Alex was off on that day.
Teams rarely play man against the Eagles to begin with, but when they do they play deep with safety help over to Jackson. More often, they play some sort of deep zone. I can't remember ever seeing someone press up on Jackson. You might win 4/5 times pressing him, but that fifth time would get you killed.
I like Jackson as a player, but he's more limited IMO then you described. He doesn't cross the field unless it's a
deep cross. He doesn't really run any option route unless it's the go route/deep comeback, probably because he's so fast it's hard to do adjustments on the fly. His route running can break down. (Of course there are other things too: he doesn't block; he'll drop a pass; he's a headcase, etc.) Basically, he's a fast perimeter player, of the type the Eagles love and seem to stockpile. Whereas we seem to prefer physical possession types (it sometimes seems like we are even trying to shoehorn Ginn into this sort of role, with uneven results). I think we could use one of their types, and they could probably use one of ours.