Desean Jackson among small WRs making it big

by JasonB on Oct 31, 2008 6:00 AM EDT in Philadelphia Eagles News

Desean_eagle__yahoo__medium

Yahoo sports ran an interesting article yesterday about how smaller recievers are making such a big impact this year.

Thanks to passing offenses that are providing greater opportunity, six wideouts under 6-feet are on pace to break 1,000 receiving yards this season – Jennings, Santana Moss of the Washington Redskins, the Buffalo Bills’ Lee Evans, Steve Smith of the Carolina Panthers, the Philadelphia Eagles’ DeSean Jackson and Wes Welker of the New England Patriots. Two others (the New Orleans Saints’ Devery Henderson and the New York Jets’ Laveranues Coles) are on pace to break 950. If all eight were to top 1,000 receiving yards, it would be the first time in NFL history that so many players under six feet had gone over the mark.

Of course, no discussion about small WRs in the NFL these days could exclude the Eagles rookie phenom Desean Jackson who leads all rookies with 505 yards. Jackson said his size certainly hurt him in the draft.

"The wide receiver coach with the Eagles has told me ‘If you had a couple more inches on you and weighed about 185, I guarantee you would have been a top five or top 10 pick,’ " Jackson said. "(Size) definitely didn’t help me. … When I went to the combine, they made a big deal out of every little centimeter and every single pound. I went in at 169 pounds and they wouldn’t round it off to 170. I was like 5-9¼ and they wouldn’t even give me 5-10."

Jackson's stats so far this year,

	Receiving						Kickoff Returns					Punt Returns
G	Rec	Yds	Y/G	AVG	Lng	TD	KR	YDS	AVG	Lng	TD	PR	Yds	Avg	Lng	TD
7	32	505	72.1	15.8	60	1	1	12	12.0	0	0	0	248	11.3	68	1

There's no doubt that Jackson's slide in the draft has left him with a chip on his shoulder, which no doubt has helped motivate him.

Maybe Jackson said it best this week, while reflecting on the NFL teams that passed him over because of his size.

"There are a lot of people," he said, "eating their words right now."

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Comments

Jackson reminds me a lot of

Andre Rison. Similar small size, similar ability to get open and make tough catches, similar feeling of the man playing with an attitude.

Hopefully Jackson’s life will be better lived than Andre’s to date. At least let’s hope Jackson’s girlfriend doesn’t burn down him mansion anytime soon…

"It's not the size of the dog in the fight, it's the size of the fight in the dog." - Bear Bryant

by NJBammer on Oct 31, 2008 8:56 AM EDT reply actions

hey, she don’t want no scrubs

"When you get that nice celebration coming into the dugout and you're getting your ass hammered by guys - there's no better feeling than to have that done." - Matt Stairs 10/13/08

Gold... Pure Gold...

by foos05 on Oct 31, 2008 10:29 AM EDT up reply actions

he reminds me alot of marvin harrison lets hope he only plays like him.

hell he also reminds me of reciver who are alot bigger. we have seen now the kid could take a hit and still be going. he is not afraid of the deffender and thats saying alot for a small rookie playing that reciver spot

by NickPampani on Oct 31, 2008 10:14 AM EDT reply actions