The Los Angeles Chargers won a bit of an ugly defensive struggle against the Denver Broncos 19-16 in overtime, raising their record to 4-2. One big development that occurred during the course of the game was that supposed star acquisition cornerback J.C. Jackson, who got signed from the New England Patriots this off-season, got benched after the first half \u2013 which, between that and his play so far, brings a lot of questions about him and whether he\u2019s worth the $82 million he\u2019s getting paid.<\/p>\n
J.C. Jackson had been nothing short of excellent during his rookie contract with the Patriots. In 2020 and 2021 combined, he pulled in 17 interceptions, the most in the league in that time period. He also led the league in pass deflections in 2021 (23), and went All-Pro in 2020. With that in mind, it was quite unexpected when the Patriots allowed him to walk in free agency.<\/p>\n
When the Chargers ended up signing Jackson<\/a> (for a five-year, $82 million deal), that was one of the bigger signings of the free agency year in general, and it made the Chargers secondary look a lot more stacked. This and the Khalil Mack trade appeared to be destined to take the Chargers defense to the next level.<\/p>\n The story of the unfortunate recent downturn of Jackson begins back in August when he ended up having surgery on his ankle. It wasn\u2019t a football injury \u2013 it was to remove an extra bone<\/a> that he was born with in the back of his foot that shouldn\u2019t have been there and was causing pain. The surgery wasn\u2019t serious, but the timeline for recovery did leave him projected to miss possibly the first one to two weeks of the regular season.<\/p>\n Jackson indeed did not play in the opener, but did play in the Thursday Night Football game against the Kansas City Chiefs \u2013 but did not appear to be 100% there. Either from the ankle taking longer to heal than expected or from it getting aggravated, he ended up missing the Week 3 contest as well. He returned in Week 4, supposedly more healthy\u2026 and it\u2019s gone downhill from there.<\/p>\n In now four games so far, Jackson has zero interceptions and only one pass deflection. Since Week 4, he\u2019s been getting burned repeatedly downfield against weaker passing attacks (Houston Texans, Cleveland Browns, Denver Broncos). The kicker against the Broncos appeared to be toward the end of the second half when Jackson got burned by K.J. Hamler \u2013 on a play where Hamler went deep and Jackson just didn\u2019t keep up and let Hamler go past him. Sure, there was kind of a double move, but it wasn\u2019t close to being an elite one, and a cornerback that is good as Jackson is supposed <\/i>to be should be able to handle that.<\/p>\n Big gain from Russ to Hamler!<\/p>\n \ud83d\udcfa: #DENvsLAC<\/a> on ESPN — NFL (@NFL) October 18, 2022<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\nThe Non-Injury Surgery<\/h3>\n
No Seriously, What Happened?<\/h3>\n
\n
\ud83d\udcf1: Stream on NFL+ https:\/\/t.co\/mKmqBgUsbz<\/a> pic.twitter.com\/xfz7pfVtWs<\/a><\/p>\n