Bear Digest

Bears hoping to benefit from Jonah Jackson's lost Rams year

The new Bears lineman had virtually no time working before a position switch with the Rams and then an injury, but Chicago has obtained a feisty, physical line presence.

Gene Chamberlain

Guard Jonah Jackson looks to throw a block for D'Andre Swift against Minnesota. Jackson and Swift are reunited in Chicago.
Guard Jonah Jackson looks to throw a block for D'Andre Swift against Minnesota. Jackson and Swift are reunited in Chicago. / Jerome Miron-Imagn Images
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The degree to which four years in Detroit and then a lost year with the Rams after free agency has softened Jonah Jackson is uncertain.

The Bears have to hope the bigger money from free agency and an injury plagued 2024 hasn’t changed their new guard too much from when he was first coming into the league.

Acquired for a sixth-round pick, according to a report by ESPN, Jackson came into the NFL with a reputation for being a very nasty player. The Lions liked his nastiness enough to trade up 10 spots in the draft to take him 75th overall in Round 3.

How nasty? During the 2020 combine he was asked what he strived to do on the field, after he had played a year at Ohio State, following three seasons with Rutgers.

“I’d say on the field being able to sustain blocks, being nasty, being tough, being a prick,” Jackson told reporters. “And then off the field just being a leader, giving guidance to young guys, older guys, and just helping out every way I can.”

His language seemed to stun everyone.

“I mean, you’re going head-to-head every play so you’ve got to be nasty,” he said. “You’ve got to have a little something off in you.

“It’s definitely vital to being an interior offensive lineman.”

The Bears can use a little bit of offensive line surliness after they saw Caleb Williams sacked 68 times last year.

At that 2020 combine, Jackson said the ornery attitude he strived for was what he saw in the player he tries to emulate.

“Somebody just asked me a question who I try to emulate my game after and Big Q was one of them,” he told reporters, referring to Colts guard Quenton Nelson. ”I like his ability to finish and just being a guy that’s just nasty 24/7 and relentless in his effort.

“You see the guy 20 yards downfield picking up the running back. Things like that you like to rub off on you and become a guy like him who’s All-Pro and regarded as one of the best interior linemen in the NFL.”

It’s not all attitude. He compared his physical playing style to someone now out of the league who is well known to all football fans.

“I’d say some athleticism, I like to compare myself to Jason Kelce,” he told combine reporters about the former Eagles center. “He’s a little shorter guy like myself, not the biggest of the bunch but once he gets to that second level and gets out in space there’s nobody better than him.

“Then my finishing ability and just overall nastiness I like to compare myself to Big Q, Quenton Nelson, I like him a lot so I like to try and mold my game after him a little bit.”

The Bears are also getting a player who has an ability to adjust to the offense, the situation and scheme, although last year wasn't really indicative of that as there were extenuating circumstances.

When Anthony Lynn was Lions offensive coordinator, Jackson told reporters it was going to be his seventh different offense in seven seasons going back to high school.

Ben Johnson took over the offense the next year, so when Jackson is reunited with the new Bears coach now it will be 10 different offenses in 11 years. At least this time Jackson knows the play caller, even if the Bears’ offense will be different than Detroit’s.

Rams quarterback Matthew Stafford knew Jackson from Detroit. When Jackson was switched from guard to center last year, there seemed to be good understanding of what the task was about.

“His command of the offense is really impressive for a guy that hasn't been here for a bunch of years and understands what we're trying to do from an offensive standpoint,” Stafford told Rams reporters. “It's been great. I have some experience with him in the past and then obviously just been talking about it.”

If the Bears have to move Jackson to center, he’s at least familiar with it.

"My first-ever position when I played football was center," Jackson told Rams reporters. "I've always played center, and it just so happened that sometimes we needed a guard more than we needed a center, so I played guard.

“Had we not had a All-Pro and Pro Bowl center (Frank Ragnow), I probably would have played center."

Even with that experience, it didn’t work out for Jackson with the Rams as a center.

Jackson’s time there seemed doomed from the very start because of injuries. He arrived rehabbing from a meniscus tear suffered in Detroit’s NFC championship game loss to San Francisco. So he missed offseason work, the OTAs.

Once training camp started, Jackson suffered a bruised scapula and had to miss all of preseason.

Only a little over a week prior to the opener, the Rams suddenly decided to move Jackson from guard to center after he hadn’t been able to work there in the new offense with his new team.

Then he had to go on injured reserve after Week 2 when he fractured the scapula that had been bruised. Jackson returned for one game against Miami and then was benched seven straight games, as they liked what they had seen from rookie center Beaux Limmer and decided to go with him.

They let Jackson play at right guard in the meaningless regular-season finale with Miami but that was his only playing time in the final 14 games.

So it really was a lost season for the new Bears guard. Even in his lost season he left an impression with his fighting attitude.

"I really appreciate Jonah on how he handled it," coach Sean McVay told ESPN in January. "A starting-level player. There are a lot of teams that would love to have Jonah Jackson at guard.  

“He put the team first in terms of just showing up, going to work and being a really good 'scout teamer.' "

The Bears obviously have much bigger plans for him than scout team, and it would appear those plans would be for him to become their starting guard, if not an enforcer to protect Williams.

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Gene Chamberlain
GENE CHAMBERLAIN

Gene Chamberlain has covered the Chicago Bears full time as a beat writer since 1994 and prior to this on a part-time basis for 10 years. He covered the Bears as a beat writer for Suburban Chicago Newspapers, the Daily Southtown, Copley News Service and has been a contributor for the Daily Herald, the Associated Press, Bear Report, CBS Sports.com and The Sporting News. He also has worked a prep sports writer for Tribune Newspapers and Sun-Times newspapers.