(670 The Score) Perhaps no one on the the Bears' roster embodies the team as a whole more than safety Eddie Jackson, who has underwhelmed since his breakthrough season in 2018, a year that now looks more like an outlier than the start of something great. Some untimely missed tackles (and one extremely untimely soundbite) have earned Jackson a dubious reputation lately, but on Thursday afternoon, Bears defensive coordinator Sean Desai explained why Jackson's season isn't going nearly as poorly as Twitter would have you think.
"I think he's doing a really good job of understanding what we're trying to get done with the whole defense," he said. "He takes a command out there of the back end, because it's not easy to play safety for us. There's a lot of adjustments and tools that they're responsible to make on the fly, based on what they see from an offense, and so he's got great command of that.
"And so all those things he's dong well, he's in the spots that we need him to be in and quite frankly when you're in those spots and you're a player that's got good history in this league, quarterbacks don't go that way."
Desai also stressed how versatile Jackson allows the Bears defense to be, pointing to how often he was in the box while the team was in nickel against the Raiders in a win on Oct. 10. Desai acknowledged that there "were issues" with the team's tackling efforts, but there's certainly no shot of Jackson losing his job anytime soon -- and Desai pushed back against even using that coaching approach in the first place.
"I don’t think threats are the way to go, as a leader or a teacher," Desai said. "Now, I think as a leader and a teacher, you gotta find unique ways to teach and make sure your message is getting across to your players. We do that in a lot of different ways, whether it’s in the film room or in practice.
"We got to continue to do a better job of it, like I said from a teaching and coaching perspective and an execution perspective. This is not just on one part in terms of player or coach. It’s a collective effort."
Desai had a bit less patience when it came to Jackson's recent social media beef with former Bears linebacker Lance Briggs. Speaking about both Jackson and cornerback Jaylon Johnson's recent social media spats, Desai -- who had just learned about it moments before meeting with the media -- said, "They need to be focused on what we need to be focused on, which is a great challenge in the Buccaneers, playing them on the road.”
"The guys know what our standard is," Desai said. "They know what the policies are. And quite frankly, it doesn’t present to be too much of a distraction because it gets directly addressed. We’re still focused on what we need to be focused on.
Cam Ellis is a writer for 670 The Score and Audacy Sports. Follow him on Twitter @KingsleyEllis.