Chicago Bears: Eddie Jackson, keep your mouth shut about Lance Briggs

One of the Chicago Bears’ biggest problems through six weeks has come in their secondary. The Bears’ starting safety play has not been good, as both Eddie Jackson and Tashaun Gipson have struggled.

Many fans wonder what would happen if Sean Desai decided to insert either Deon Bush or DeAndre Houston-Carson for one of those guys or even replace both.

One starting safety, in particular, stood out as even worse than the other one against the Green Bay Packers on Sunday. The Bears’ front seven was fantastic for most of the game, but Green Bay took advantage of some poor efforts by Jackson, specifically.

After the game, former Bears linebacker and current NBCS analyst Lance Briggs brought up Jackson’s poor tackling effort against Green Bay.

"“Eddie Jackson … His name keeps coming up for the wrong reasons … when you come up, and you make that hit on Davante Adams, and he gets past you, it’s going to be a touchdown, kid. You have to make that play!”"

Lance Briggs was dead on about Chicago Bears safety Eddie Jackson, despite the safety’s displeasure with the comments.

Briggs was referring to a big play made by Packers wideout Davante Adams where Jackson made contact but did not bring the receiver down.

After hearing Briggs’ comments, Jackson took to his Twitter account late Sunday night to try and respond to the Bears legend.

Let’s establish the facts here. Nothing about what Briggs did or didn’t do in the past will affect the Bears’ current 2021 campaign. As a matter of fact, what will influence this season is if Jackson pulls his head out of you-know-where and starts playing football again.

It’s a common thought around Bears fandom, but it’s true: Jackson got paid last January and stopped trying. For two seasons now, he’s been a below-average safety. He’s no longer putting in the effort to make tackles. Instead, he’s trying to explain to his teammates in practice why they shouldn’t go for tackles and instead try for the football.

Sorry kid, unless your name is Charles Tillman, there’s no reason you should be giving that type of advice.

Jackson hasn’t played at an elite, or even a satisfactory level, for quite some time. Since his 2018 season, Jackson has been a shell of himself.

Through six games, Jackson has yet to break up a single pass. Per Pro Football Reference, he has been credited with exactly zero passes defended. He went all of 2020 without intercepting a single pass and has yet to pick one off in 2021 thus far.

At this point, Jackson has no room to bark — especially not to a Bears legend like Lance Briggs. He’s trying to pick a fight with a guy who has been to a Super Bowl and is one of the best linebackers in team history — bad move for a young, descending player.

Eddie Jackson, it’s time to shut your mouth and keep it shut until you can start backing up that loud mouth with your play on the field.