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Film Room: All Of CB Donte Jackson’s 14 Career Interceptions

By Ross McCorkle

Posted on May 31, 2024 at 6:00 pm

When the 2024 season is all said and done, the trade between the Pittsburgh Steelers and the Carolina Panthers will come into focus in a big way if either the cornerback or wide receiver positions don’t pan out for the Steelers. One of the big storylines of the last couple months has been figuring out the WR2 spot opposite George Pickens, and there still isn’t a great answer or any guarantee that one will come. That was an issue the team created for themselves when they shipped away Johnson for Jackson. On the other end of things, the Steelers didn’t draft a defensive back until their final pick of the 2024 NFL Draft, and part of the reason for that is presumably the addition of Jackson.

Mike Tomlin and others within the organization have been after Jackson since he was a college prospect, and they were once again in the mix for his services when he first entered free agency back in 2022 following the conclusion of his rookie deal. Some have questioned how good of a fit he is opposite Joey Porter Jr., but he is very clearly the second-best corner on the team right now. The depth looks like it will be a problem, and there really is no viable competition for Jackson at that starting outside spot.

In a two part series, I wanted to pull together all of Jackson’s career interceptions, then all of his career pass breakups to paint the picture of his ball skills and what he can provide to the Steelers. Today, we will be looking at his interceptions.

He exploded onto the NFL scene in 2018 as a rookie with 3 interceptions in his first 3 career games, and he had 7 interceptions over his first 2 seasons, with 2 multi-interception games. In total, he has 14 over his career in 80 games played.

The list of quarterbacks he has picked off is pretty impressive. Tom Brady, Matthew Stafford, Justin Herbert, Kyler Murray, Matt Ryan, Ryan Tannehill, Jalen Hurts, and others.

Before we cut to the tape, I have some general observations about his play.

For one, he is very competitive at the catch point. Back at the combine he measured in at 5104, 178 pounds. He isn’t the biggest guy, but he fights for the ball in contested catch situations and does a nice job wrestling it away in some of the clips below.

He also does a good job reading quarterbacks’ eyes and tracking the ball in the air. There are a couple clips below where he reacts to routes in front of him where he wasn’t the primary cover player and picked the ball off by getting himself in the correct position. Almost like a center fielder in baseball, he does a great job judging the depth of the pass and puts himself in position to make the play.

There are some plays where it looks like he is the receiver, and he basically runs the route for the WR to intercept the pass. Once again, he gets his head back around and locks in to the quarterback and the ball in the air to readjust.

Finally, he is looking to score every time he intercepts a pass. He only had one pick-six in his career, but he came close a few more times. He flips from a defender to a punt returner in an instant when he gets the ball in his hands. You can see him pointing some of his players down the field to block and his vision to find the soft areas to pick up extra yards is great.

Of the 6 interceptions he had where a return was possible, he had an average return of 31 yards. That also includes a zero-yard return in which he was facemasked for a 15-yard penalty. His longest was a 66-yard return against the Chargers in 2020. In two of the long returns he started on the ground after diving for interceptions and got up for big returns. He is a threat to return one for a touchdown every time he gets the ball in his hands with room to move.