Adoree’ Jackson remained unsigned for the entire offseason, training camp and preseason before the Giants brought back cornerback for his eighth NFL season on a one-year deal over the weekend.
Despite sitting on the shelf for that long, the veteran insists there are “no animosity, no feelings, no ill intentions on my end” that he wasn’t brought back sooner to help fill a need at outside corner.
“When I came in and saw everybody, it was like being at a family reunion,” Jackson said on Monday. “Like, ‘I [haven’t] seen you in a minute. Where you been? How you been? What you been up to?’ So, I didn’t have any vibes of anything being bad.
“When they hit me up or they call me or text me. It wasn’t like I didn’t want to reach out or I didn’t want to pick up the phone. I’ve been knowing them for two years. We’ve had relationships and talk before. I understand that things [are] a business and I don’t ever want to put business with anything personal. That’s just how life goes.”
Jackson totaled 63 tackles (49 solo), an interception (for a touchdown) and a forced fumble in 14 games last season — his third with the Giants after signing as a free agent ahead of the 2021 campaign.
The Giants looking to solve the second outside corner position during training camp and will pair Jackson with last year’s first-round pick Deonte Banks after third-year corner Cor’Dale Flott and fourth-year vet Nick McCloud failed to seize their opportunities.
The soon-to-be 29-year-old said he had been working out to get his body in a good spot to be ready to contribute, but this week there is a lot to be determined.
“We’ll get him acclimated in the system. It’s one thing working out and doing all those things, it’s another thing of playing football,” head coach Brian Daboll said. “We’ll see where he’s at. I’m sure he’ll give everything he can give to try to be as ready as he can be.”
Jackson did not want to put a number of snaps he could play in Sunday’s season-opener against the Minnesota Vikings and Daboll said they are going to get him on the practice field and “ramp him up and see where he’s at.”
“We’ll take it day by day,” he said. “… and how much to play him, how much not to play him. I think that’s what we’ll do, look at this week.”
Daboll added: “It’s definitely not the same as going through a training camp and all those things … I know he’s worked out. He looked good in the workout, in shape. Now it’s getting into football shape as quick as we can get him into it.”
And how fast Jackson can get back into the swing of things will impact the playing time for Flott and McCloud.
“By the end of the week, we’ll determine what we’re going to do relative to roster, play time, all those types of things,” Daboll said. “Those guys are competitors. It’s the NFL, so you try to make it as competitive as you can make it, and we’ll play the guys we think give us the best chance.”
Daboll said the familiarity they have with Jackson and the cornerback’s familiarity with Big Blue’s first-year defensive coordinator Shane Bowen, who served as the Titans’ outside linebackers coach for three seasons (2018-20), which overlapped with Jackson’s final three years in Tennessee, helped led to the reunion.
While Jackson acknowledged that “some of the verbiage may have changed” in Bowne’s defense since they overlapped in Tennessee it will be “easy” for the veteran to “wire my mind” and “compartmentalize what these defenses may be and some of the calls.”
