The Pittsburgh Steelers coveted CB Donte Jackson enough to trade a starting wide receiver to get him. It’s a premise that many fans struggle to accept—unless they deny the value of Diontae Johnson as a commodity. But for the Steelers, Jackson is a player they seem to believe in. And he is a player excited to play for them.
“I almost feel, like, giddy”, Jackson told Chris Adamski last week for the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review. “I feel giddy like how I was going into LSU, just knowing the standard was already set, you know what you had to come in there to do, it’s been like this for years. And that’s kind of how I felt coming here”.
A second-round draft pick, Jackson, now 28, has six NFL seasons under his belt. He has played his entire career for the Carolina Panthers thus far but is ready to play where more eyes will be on him. And for a program like the Steelers where he believes they have a foundation.
“Just knowing that I was coming here to be part of something that was always already up and running and that was already dominant and that I could come in and just be come out rolling, that’s exciting”, Adamski quotes Jackson as saying about coming to the Steelers.
Pittsburgh, of course, hasn’t won a playoff game since 2016, though the Panthers go back one year further. Jackson only played in one postseason game during his time with the Panthers. They posted a losing record in every single one of his seasons, so he’s ready to taste success for a stable franchise.
“I’m excited, giddy like a little kid, because the here standard is set – you come in here, you’ve got to swim with sharks, man”, Jackson said. He added, “I like to think I am a shark”.
The Steelers do have a standard of cornerback play going back to Jack Butler, Mel Blount, and Rod Woodson. Those are just the Hall of Famers, of course. And they’re hoping that Donte Jackson’s running mate, Joey Porter Jr., someday joins that list. A 2023 second-round draft pick, Porter is a rising star in their secondary, for whom they were searching for a partner.
Pittsburgh hopes Jackson can be that legitimate complementary coverage man across from Porter. Both he and head coach Mike Tomlin have talked about their previous dalliances. The Steelers expressed interest in him coming out of LSU. They were a finalist for his services when he hit free agency. Most recently, they reportedly nearly traded for him close to the trade deadline last season. You can say that this union was a long time in the making.
But now they have him, on the final year of his contract, hoping to get the most out of him. Jackson has intriguing skills, albeit in a smaller frame. If the Steelers can coach him out of some of his bad habits, he can potentially have a strong second half of his career in Pittsburgh. You can bet Mike Tomlin believes he and his staff can do just that.
