‘He’s a survivor’: Veteran corner Adoree’ Jackson still hanging on as a starter with the Eagles
Adoree’ Jackson’s world used to be small.
He grew up on the east side of the Mississippi River in Belleville, Ill., and had familial ties to East St. Louis and its urban decay. The farthest he had been from home was Missouri and Kansas before his athleticism in track and football found him on the way to southern California for his sophomore year of high school.
Jackson turned to that past last month when talking about the career crossroads he has been facing with the Eagles, who signed him this past offseason to a one-year deal and gave him a chance to compete for a starting cornerback job.
“I can only be fortunate, thankful, and grateful,” Jackson, in his ninth season, said in October. “You want to play as long as you can, as long as you want. Whatever happens this season or going forward, I’m going to be all right.”
This was before the Eagles played the Vikings in Week 7. At that point, Jackson had been a starter, missed time to a groin injury, and had served as a backup and in-game fill-in as the Eagles had a revolving door at outside cornerback on the opposite boundary from Quinyon Mitchell.
The market for cast-off 30-year-old corners isn’t typically kind. Jackson was picked on by the Dallas Cowboys in Week 1 but was playing better before injuries and the Eagles giving a shot to Kelee Ringo briefly put him on the back burner.
Ringo didn’t hang on to the job, and the Eagles turned back to Jackson before the Vikings game. Jackson said he wanted to just “go play, go hoop, go have fun, and do what I do.”
Jackson played well in Minnesota but left the game after suffering a concussion, an injury that forced him to miss the following week against the Giants. But the Eagles went back to him again in Green Bay after the bye week, and again Jackson held up well.
“He’s a survivor,” Eagles defensive coordinator Vic Fangio said. “I think this is his [ninth] year, and if you’ve survived that long, you’ve got a little something in you. Hopefully he can take that game, build on it, and keep playing good.”
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The Eagles will go back to Jackson on Sunday night in a game that will test the former Southern Cal star and the Eagles’ secondary in a way no game has so far in 2025. The Lions are a high-powered offense that can beat an opponent in multiple ways. Jackson will have his hands full, likely often against the speedy Jameson Williams.
How Jackson performs Sunday could determine how the Eagles approach the defensive backfield for the stretch run. It’s hard to imagine that the Eagles have full trust in Jackson, Ringo, or even Jakorian Bennett given the way they approached the trade deadline. They acquired outside corner Jaire Alexander, who promptly stepped away from the sport, and nickel Michael Carter II, whose acquisition opened the possibility of Cooper DeJean moving outside.
Carter is learning the nuances of the Eagles defense, Fangio said, and remains for now the team’s backup nickel. What would it take for DeJean to move outside? It’s been a topic of conversation often this season based on the inconsistent play on the outside. But the Eagles now have nickel insurance behind DeJean.
It would take the play on the outside not being good enough, Fangio said when asked Thursday what would cause DeJean to move outside long-term and not just within the Eagles’ base defense.
Right now, that means Jackson would have to falter. It’s unclear if the Eagles would then go to Bennett, who just came off injured reserve, or Ringo, before turning to DeJean.
Fangio essentially called Jackson out near the beginning of training camp. It was time, Fangio said, to see who Jackson was and who he wasn’t. In the three-plus months that have followed, Jackson has looked the part of a starter and the part of a veteran playing out the string on the end of a nine-year run.
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Jackson said he tries his best to not think about the roller coaster of it all.
“It’s inevitable as a human to not feel that emotion of down on yourself, sad, but at the end of the day you can’t just ride that,” he said. “You know what it is to feel that way and then you react.
“For me, it’s just all about staying the course. Things may go this way or that way. I just try to be where my feet are in the moment, and right now that’s talking to you. So we’re going to be all right.”
After all, he once knew only Illinois, Missouri, and Kansas. California, he said, “was just so foreign.”
“This comedian Mike Epps used to say everybody in this room got they problems, and you throw them in a circle,” Jackson said. “You’re all in a circle. He’d count to three and say, ‘Go grab your problems.’ And when you get there, you can’t find your problems because somebody picked your [stuff] up because your problems are way better than theirs, and then when you get their problems you’re like, ‘Damn, I should’ve just stayed with mine.’
“That’s how I look at my situation and wherever I am in life. It could be way worse, and it could be way better. But at the end of the day, as J. Cole says, ‘There’s no such thing as a life that’s better than yours.’ I’m content and happy with what the Lord has done for me.”
