Philadelphia Eagles wide receiver DeSean Jackson has a lot going on outside of football, and reports have surfaced that suggested that his outside influences were starting to affect his football.
Jackson is playing for his Eagles contract as I’ve reported before, and if he was trying to make a good impression with Chip Kelly, he’s failed miserably so far.
Kelly is trying to find his niche with this Eagles team, and he’s not afraid to make a point to his team. DeSean Jackson found that out the hard way recently when he spent time getting reps with the third team, and the starters as he was used to.
Jackson says he was upset about the situation, but according to Thacover2 Kelly got his attention.
“There were times when I was going with the threes, times when I was going with the twos, things like that,” said Jackson in a one-on-one conversation with Birds 24/7. “There was a point where I went into Chip Kelly’s office and talked to him face-to-face to see what was going on with that.”
Kelly reportedly told Jackson there was no depth chart, and he had to earn the right to start.
“He just expects everyone to do things a certain way. He was asking everybody to do the same thing. For myself, I just had to really hear it from his mouth to get that rapport with him and be on the same page with him. When I went in there, he said he expects everybody to buy into the system and do everything the right way,” said Jackson. ”And if there is any little thing a player doesn’t want to do, that’s his way of reacting to it. The best thing I did was go talk to him instead of just sitting back and being mad.”
Jackson also struggled to pick up Kelly’s offense that makes knowing everyone’s position a priority for skill position players.
Jackson himself acknowledged that he was slowing learning the system, and therefore was demoted.
“At the beginning of the process I didn’t know the full offense and I didn’t know every play, so that probably had to do with why I was moved to different teams and things like that,” Jackson said. “Now I am all-in on the offense and I’m very familiar with the whole system. It’s a good thing that I am able to learn that and know what everyone is doing instead of one person. . . .
“Now I’m with the right group and everything is good and there’s never been no problems. I just had to get a feel for [Kelly] and know what he wants and what he expects me to do.”