Maybe Aaron Rodgers should have listened. Jerry Jacobs told him at halftime to target a different Lions cornerback. Rodgers kept coming Jacobs' way and Jacobs kept making him pay in Detroit's 15-9 win over the Packers Sunday at Ford Field.
In his first significant action since tearing his ACL last December, Jacobs was the force the Lions remembered, the snarling corner who plays like a "pit bull" in the eyes of Dan Campbell.
He denied a deep ball down the sideline to Allen Lazard in the second quarter by pushing the Packers' No. 1 receiver out of bounds before he could come down with the catch. When he punctuated the play by fastening the seatbelt, the celebration he coined as a rookie, Jacobs was officially back.
The former undrafted free agent fears no one. He talks the talk and typically backs it up. When the two teams were running off the field at halftime, Detroit leading 8-0, Jacobs barked at Rodgers, "Stop trying me!"
"And he was like, ‘Ah man, I got to,'" Jacobs said with a smile. "But he told me I was doing good, so it was good to hear that from him.”
In the second half, Jacobs would bite. He blew up a screen to Aaron Jones by sniffing out the play as soon as it was snapped and snuffing it out with a six-yard tackle for loss that forced a punt on the Packers' opening drive. Detroit's defense has been on the wrong end of a lot of teaching tape this season. Here was Jacobs on the other.
And midway through the fourth quarter, Jacobs delivered one of the biggest plays of the game. With the Packers trailing 15-6 and facing 3rd and 3 from Detroit's seven, Jacobs broke up a slant to Sammy Watkins with more fast, physical defense to force a field goal. That proved crucial when the Packers drove into the red zone again in the final minute of the game, but needed a touchdown trailing by six. They wouldn't get it.
It was a huge lift for Detroit's dead-last defense, which entered the game allowing the highest passer rating in the NFL. And it came just a few days after the firing of defensive backs coach Aubrey Pleasant, who had been a mentor for several of the young players in the Lions' secondary, Jacobs included.
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"We just came together, man," Jacobs said. "I won’t say we did it for Coach Pleasant, but he started this group for us and we’re going to finish it off. This week was to be together and do it for him. And that’s what we did, we locked in this whole week. We had a good practice and it paid off in the game.”
It was a long road back for Jacobs, who ran off the field Sunday with a smile plastered on his face. He had logged 45 defensive snaps, his most in almost a full year. And the win was a long time coming for the Lions, who had Rodgers rattled and Ford Field rocking and their loudest corner in the center of it all.
“I’m blessed," said Jacobs. "Thank God. I am able to be back on that field and celebrate doing things like that with my team, to get a win. I’m so happy. I don’t know if I even know if I have an emotion for it.”
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