Oct 12, 2008 12:30 pm US/Eastern
Eagles Head West To Play Niners
SAN FRANCISCO (AP) ―
If the San Francisco 49ers
had just been paying attention, those cheers emanating from across the Bay in Berkeley would have told
them who to draft last spring.
DeSean Jackson was a
sensation in his three years at California,
returning punts and catching touchdown passes with unmatched flair. Though "Tha Chosen 1" faltered badly—along
with his Golden Bears teammates—late last season, he confidently entered the
NFL draft one year early, starting workouts with Jerry Rice and signing with
former 49ers owner Eddie DeBartolo's sports management company.
Meanwhile, the 49ers
badly needed an exciting offensive playmaker who could also return kicks.
Everything seemed to be in place for Jackson
to trade his blue-and-gold jersey for the Niners' garnet and gold, particularly
after questions about his size dropped him into the second round.
"I took a trip there
before I got drafted, and I met with coach (Mike) Martz and with the head
coach," Jackson
said. "It was definitely a good place to be. I spent my college career there,
so it would have been a cool place to play professional football."
Instead, Jackson will line up at Candlestick Park
on Sunday as the Philadelphia Eagles' most exciting young player. Chilo Rachal,
the unheralded USC offensive lineman that the 49ers curiously reached to select
over Jackson
with the 39th pick, is unlikely to get on the field at all.
Jackson, who fell all
the way to Philadelphia
with the 49th pick, is busy proving the foolishness of every team
that passed on him. He leads the Eagles and all NFL rookies with 335 yards receiving,
and his 68-yard punt return for a touchdown against Washington last week bolstered his return
average to 13.2 yards.
When asked to explain
why in the world San Francisco would choose Rachal instead of Jackson, coach
Mike Nolan inexplicably claimed the club thought Rachal "would help us more
quickly," even though Rachal was an early entry candidate at a position that often
requires years of seasoning—and a player widely expected to fall into the third
round or lower.
Rachal has yet to touch
the field after five games, while the 49ers had to sign veteran kick-return
specialist Allen Rossum to fill a troublesome spot for last season's team.
Although Josh Morgan looked good in training camp, the 49ers don't have a young
receiver with Jackson's
potential or pedigree.
Perhaps the 49ers were
spooked by the whispered concerns about Jackson's
work ethic and occasional me-first attitude—no surprise from a player whose big
brother, former NFL receiver Byron Jackson, has been videotaping DeSean's every
move for 15 years in hopes of making a movie about his life.
Eagles coach Andy Reid
didn't share those concerns after speaking with the people who knew Jackson best—and who live
just 50 miles from the 49ers' training complex.
"Coach (Jeff) Tedford
is a heck of a coach," Reid said. "He was very upfront with me on things that
he did with DeSean, and I have a lot of respect for him. ... He just said there
were a couple of things he would do different, and so I took that into consideration,
and then I didn't feel it was a problem. And you know what? He's been
tremendous here, just fit right in."
Jackson
said San Francisco's
snub is nothing personal. He's intent on showing every NFL club, not just the
Niners, what they missed.
"Every team that passed
up on me, definitely when I play them I just handle my business," Jackson said. "It's a
special place in Philly. Things have been going well. We just have to get back
on the winning track."
Both the Eagles and the
49ers enter Sunday's game at 2-3, with their seasons in danger of slipping away
following back-to-back losses. Philadelphia
quarterback Donovan McNabb has been sharply critical of his team's poor
performances against Chicago and Washington, while Nolan already is enduring early
whispers about his job security after the 49ers were thoroughly ineffective in losses
to New Orleans and New
England.
Jackson's
play is less likely to determine the game's outcome than the meeting at San Francisco's line of
scrimmage. The Eagles thrive on quarterback pressure and clever blitzes under
coordinator Jim Johnson, and they registered nine sacks in a win over Ben Roethlisberger
and Pittsburgh
last month.
That's bad news for
49ers quarterback J.T. O'Sullivan, who has been sacked 20 times in just five
games. Martz's offenses have yielded huge sack totals in the past two seasons
in Detroit, and
while O'Sullivan hasn't yet been injured by all that contact, he has completed
less than half of his passes and thrown five interceptions in the last two
games.
Just like Jackson, O'Sullivan doesn't lack for
confidence.
"I think I do a pretty good
job of understanding what the reads are, checking the ball down, things like
that," O'Sullivan said. "It's just a
matter of protecting the ball, being conscious of the fact that obviously
turnovers are bad, but I'm not going to become trigger-shy and start to
question my judgment. If I see something, I'm going to throw it to the open
guy."
(© 2008 The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.)
