Why Eddie Jackson Needs to Focus on Playing Defense

Eddie Jackson made an appearance Monday on NFL Network's Good Morning Football and talked about a range of topics but one in particular approached silliness if not complete stupidity.

It wasn't the discussion of his header on his Twitter account, which says "Revenge."

It's reasonable to assume he wants revenge for plenty of things, and so does the team.

"Right now it's revenge season for everything," Jackson explained to GMFB after discussion about how his Madden rating dropped to seventh among safeties, how he fell from the NFL.com top 100 players and how the team has been trashed throughout the offseason by analysts.

The real sore spot here is where Jackson laughed and joked with GMFB hosts about wanting to play some offense.

"I feel like coach Nagy knows that already," Jackson said.

Then they managed to get Jackson to issue a rather silly plea to be allowed on the offensive side.

"All I need is two or three plays, coach," Jackson said. "If I mess up you can take out the packages but I doubt it."

The Bears need to be a serious football team now.

If this truly is a "revenge" season, they need to take a professional approach.

Using defensive players on offense is so 2018. They might want the 2018 success back, which is fine, but you can't go back in history.

"Those who live in the past are cowards and losers," as Mike Ditka said.

The entire Club Dub thing needs to be scrapped in favor of a new professional victory approach, but even more so than Club Dub is this thought of using defensive players on offense.

That's what offensive players are for―you don't see offensive players asking if they can go out and play defense.

Opponents view this as some sort of petty slap in their faces, even something unsportsmanlike anyway. It will always carry unnecessary harsh feelings.

Beyond this, it's simply stupid to put a safety who was paid $58.4 million onto the field on offense so defensive players from the other team can take pot shots at him.

Jackson's skills are not so diverse as to demand he should be playing some offense, too. He's not Deion Sanders or Bo Jackson or someone who is in more than one sport.

It's not just Jackson. The Bears don't need to be putting Akiem Hicks in as a goal-line ball carrier again. They already saw what happens to the defense when they lose their best defensive lineman for three-quarters of a season last year. There's no sense getting him injured with a childish goal-line carry. Leave this to the offensive players who are being paid to do this.

They even used Khalil Mack in the playoff game in the backfield. The Eagles should have been laughing at the thought the Bears were so desperate on offense they had to bring in the game's most dominant pass rusher to try and be a decoy or a ball carrier or blocker.

Mack brings nothing to the offensive side of the ball. Neither does Hicks.

Using them there says little for the players on offense who normally would perform those roles.

William Perry hasn't played for quite some time and even when he did the entire idea of switching him to offense only probably helped about three plays. They could have scored a touchdown in the Super Bowl without giving him the ball, and giving it to Walter Payton would have satisfied everyone. They should have, and Ditka knew it.

These Bears used this tactic in 2018 and at the time it helped serve a purpose. Their offense was well behind their defense's progress. Letting defensive players get on the field for a few downs helped to unite the team rather than see it be divided by two units at opposing ends of the success range.

Often when a team has an imbalance with one side of the football being so much better, a divide can result. The old Ed O'Bradovich quote to quarterback Bill Wade coming on the field with the Bears offense in 1963 after the defense produced yet another turnover was "Try to hold 'em." That's typical of what can happen, the type of schism that can develop.

Nagy, though, never faced this because both he and defensive coordinator Vic Fangio had already done a good job of leading that team in 2018. They didn't really need something as gimmicky as letting defenders play offense to unite that team but got away with doing it.

How often did they do it last year?

It would have been pretty silly to see an 8-8 team trotting linemen out as wide receivers when the wide receivers couldn't even get the ball into the end zone.

Now, the Bears need using this approach even less.

They are a veteran group. They should have a better offense. The defense has key players who are too valuable to risk playing a couple downs on offense. They're paid far too much for this.

It's time for the Bears to leave the past alone and focus on being a legitimate, winning team rather than a cheap gimmick.

Twitter: BearDigest@BearsOnMaven