LANDOVER, Md. – A week earlier, Darrell Jackson stood in the Seattle Seahawks’ locker room wearing a floppy hat and good-naturedly poked fun at himself for habitually dropping passes.
When your team overcomes such indiscretions and wins the game, jokes come easy and are somewhat therapeutic.
On Sunday afternoon, inside a cramped locker room at FedEx Field, a different Darrell Jackson stood in front of a smaller group of reporters. He still willingly answered all their questions, but the jovial Jackson was replaced by a more perplexed one.
“I’m just going through a phase right now,” the Seahawks’ receiver said after dropping three more passes, including a critical one in the final minute of a 27-20 loss to the Washington Redskins. “I’m dropping the easy ones and catching the hard ones. I just have to continue to fight to get out of it.”
The drops are not the only weekly routine for Jackson, who now finds himself constantly having to answer for them. To his credit, he doesn’t shy away from the negative publicity, always patting a hand on his own chest after games in which his hands have let him down. The questions have to get tiresome, but Jackson realizes that – like himself – the fans are searching for answers.
The only time he winced at the most recent post-game session came when a reporter inquired as to whether the dropped balls are a result of a near-fatal concussion Jackson suffered almost 13 months ago. That injury, which included a post-game seizure, kept Jackson out of three games following an over-the-middle hit by Dallas Cowboys safety Darren Woodson.
“Those (dropped) balls, I’m jumping on the outside where no one could hit me,” he said Sunday. “So I don’t know why people keep asking me that question. … I’ve been in a lot of stuff worse than (Woodson’s) hit. That’s a part of football. Those hits don’t really bother me. I’m dropping balls on the outside, not really on the inside.”
So why is he dropping balls? After Sunday’s game, Jackson’s count is up to a team-high 14 in nine games. He entered this season as one of the team’s most reliable receivers yet can’t seem to catch a cold in a rainstorm lately.
While it’s a complicated problem, Jackson’s recent drops seem to center around recurrence. Much like a baseball hitter mired in a hitting slump, Jackson is aware of his struggles and might be pressing too hard to overcome them.
That was the case on Jackson’s final drop Sunday, which resulted in a game-clinching interception by Fred Smoot with 38 seconds remaining. He admitted afterward that what should have been a routine catch was made difficult by the subconscious demons that come with his recent struggles. Instead of using his natural instinct to reach out and catch Matt Hasselbeck’s pass with his hands, Jackson attempted to corral the ball with his body, an obvious sign for any receiver who isn’t completely sure of himself.
“When you’re going through a phase like I’m going through, where you’re supposed to be catching the ball, you’re just trying to catch it,” he said. “And that was one of those that I should have tried to use my hands on instead of trying to body-catch it.”
Further supporting the case for his pressing is the fact that Jackson’s drops are becoming more prevalent. He has eight drops in the last three weeks alone.
“It’s frustrating because he’s a good player going through a tough stretch,” coach Mike Holmgren said. “It’s very frustrating. I’ve talked about him a lot. He’s one of my favorite guys; he’s given us a lot over the years. I expect him to catch every ball thrown to him, and it’s just not happening that way.”
Jackson’s teammates are also baffled by his sudden struggles, although they refuse to blame the most recent loss on him.
“You can never point fingers,” cornerback Shawn Springs said. “We’re still 6-3. That’s what happens sometimes. You win some, you lose some. But the bottom line is that you’re never at a point where you can blame one guy.
“We all made some mistakes and gave up some plays. You can’t just say it was a dropped pass or a dropped interception.”
Amid all the frustration, Jackson is the most bewildered of all.
“You never really forget that play,” he said of Smoot’s interception. “It’s always what-if, what-if, what-if. But it’s best to forget it because we’ve got more games to play.”
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