Austin Jackson – 1st Quarter Profile

We’re just over a quarter of the way into the 2020 NFL Season, and I think as Dolfans, there’s not a bigger surprise than how well the offensive line has played thus far. I chronicled the interior trio of Ereck Flowers, Ted Karras, and Solomon Kindley earlier this summer, and they have not disappointed. They’re very stout in pass protection. Solomon Kindley has played well enough that I will revisit his play and do a similar piece solely dedicated to him. But for today, I wanted to look at left tackle Austin Jackson. I’ll do a similar writeup and grading scale as I did for the interior trio and show some clips of his game so far, both good and bad.

I know a lot of Dolfans were upset when Jackson was picked. Too early. Not good enough. Got dominated by A.J. Epenesa. Those were the criticisms I heard post-pick. Go figure he’s the only first-round left tackle yet to allow a sack so far this year. Daniel Jeremiah said during Draft Coverage that he’d heard for a week leading up to the Draft that Jackson had the potential to go in the top 15 picks. I think that rumor was substantiated as Jackson just missed going there, and Miami took him 18th overall.

After the Draft Weekend, I wanted to dig into Austin Jackson and find out more about him. I watched the USC vs. Iowa game, and I came away rather encouraged. You can watch that game for yourself here:

People had talked so much about how Epenesa destroyed Jackson in that game, and I just don’t entirely see that. There are really bad plays in that game. One, Epenesa fakes an inside move and gets outside of Jackson for a strip sack. That’s bad. There’s another where it looks like Jackson and the left guard blew a communication and Epenesa just goes between the two of them untouched for a sack. Without knowing the call we can’t squarely lay blame directly on Jackson. But other than those two instances, Jackson got the better of the matchup, in my opinion. The same goes for his game against Bradlee Anae and Utah, which is here:

My main takeaways from watching Jackson in those games were that:

1) He’s got good footwork most of the time; when it is, he’s tough to beat
2) His footwork can be inconsistent, but he can sometimes negate that with strength/size
3) Sometimes he’s too patient with his hand punch and/or his hands get too far outside
4) He will guess and overset at times
5) His run blocking needs work

After watching those two games, I dove a little deeper into his giving his younger sister a bone marrow donation. ESPN’s Shelley Smith has a great story on that here:

To summarize, the bone marrow transplant saved his sister Autumn’s life. To get the bone marrow, they had to drill into Austin’s hip several times, and the recovery is very painful and can take months. Suffice to say, that Jackson wasn’t at 100% at the start of USC’s 2019 season and didn’t look quite right. Fast forward to now, Jackson’s a 21-year-old rookie who won’t turn 22 until the middle of Training Camp next August. And he’s yet to allow a sack. Pretty impressive.

One important thing to keep in mind is that tackles almost always have a direct responsibility in pass protection. Guards and Centers sometimes won’t have to block anyone, for example, against a three-man line. So, you’re going to see the grades from Flowers, Karras, and Kindley are higher than the grades for Austin Jackson. But, we have a larger pool of snaps from the four games of Jackson’s to pull grades from and fewer plays of a “No Impact” mark.

Keep in mind, a negative grade doesn’t mean a sack was allowed. It merely means his player altered the Quarterback’s position, launch point, or throwing angle. There are some pressures and hits Jackson allows, but no sacks. I also graded snaps where a penalty occurred, even if the play didn’t count. Jackson on the year has two penalties of his own. One Unnecessary Roughness Penalty against Jacksonville, which wiped out his own positive grade as he put his rusher on the ground. Another was a hold against Seattle. Let’s dive in.

Week 1 vs. New England – Grade: 78%
In this game, Jackson acquitted himself nicely. That’s impressive, especially against a Bill Belichick defense where you’re going to see multiple different players rushing you, lots of games, blitzes, and strange alignments. None of it was too big for Jackson as I have him graded positively on 21 of 27 pass snaps. There were also 11 plays with a “No Impact” grade, likely due to Belichick sending rushers from odd places and dropping guys you think are rushing. Essentially, 84% of the pass snaps were plays where Jackson blocked his man, or his assignment didn’t impact the play. Let’s look at some reps.

***Turn your volume off, I didn’t realize I captured background noise in some of these.***

In this first rep, he’ll be one-on-one with Shilique Calhoun, who is lined up in a Wide-5 or “Ghost” 7 technique look. His set is nice and he’s patient with his hands here, in a good way, and doesn’t allow Calhoun to strike first and have a two-way go. He crosses his feet a bit and looks like he’s about to lose his balance, but he’s able to maintain contact with Calhoun just long enough with his left hand to be able to reset and come to balance and keeps Calhoun well way from Fitzpatrick as he let’s go of the pass. A good rep versus an outside speed rush.

Later in the game, we’ll see him one-on-one versus Deatrich Wise, who is more of a power rusher. Wise is in the same alignment as Calhoun was in the previous rep, just with his hand in the dirt. Wise is going to try a chop-rip move here. In this rep, we’ll see Jackson actually end up with both feet off the ground when Wise tries to rip up with his left arm. Jackson got too much size and strength and stays attached to him and continues to push him around the arc, eventually snatching him to the ground.

Both of these reps showcase that even when Jackson’s technique isn’t perfect, he’s still able to win the rep. The footwork is mostly good, and he’s able to counter the chop-rip move from Wise and move to finish the block.

In this rep, New England has a run blitz called. LB Ja’Whaun Bentley #51 is going to attack the B gap between Jackson and Flowers. Jackson recognizes this too late and steps at an angle instead of drop-stepping and moving flat down the line to cut off Bentley. Bentley then proceeds to blow up the pulling Solomon Kindley and the result of the play is a tackle for loss. You’ll see reps in the run game like this with Jackson quite a bit. He’s a bit of a “bull in the China shop” when run blocking. He won’t always hit his target, as you’ll see in the next rep, or he’ll take a misstep and won’t generate an effective block.

Here, Miami’s running an inside zone play and Jackson’s responsibility is to cut off the backside inside linebacker, Anfernee Jennings #58. Jackson’s initial steps are good, but he doesn’t play with control here and breakdown to start the block. He ducks his head and lunges at Jennings, who gives him the bullfighter olé move and goes right around him. Had Flowers blocked his man better Gaskin might’ve had a shot at big yardage if Jackson stays on Jennings. Great effort from Shilique Calhoun on this play.

Week 2 vs. Buffalo – Grade: 73%
Buffalo presents some different challenges as they base in a 4-man front. Jackson had to face savvy vets Jerry Hughes and Mario Addison in this game, and Jackson took some lumps. But again, he didn’t surrender a sack. He had positive grades on 24 of 33 snaps, with 12 others being no impact as Miami had several screens and RPOs in this game where the line came off run-blocking, or there was no defender for Jackson to block.

Mario Addison teaches the rookie a lesson about footwork as he converts speed-to-power in this move. Jackson oversteps to try and counteract what he thinks is going to be an outside rush move, and with Fitzpatrick in the gun, he thinks he can just run him around the arc. Addison surprises him with a strong bull move as he flattens his rush and knocks Jackson back into Fitz’s lap. Hughes executes a wicked spin on Jesse Davis on the other side and hits Fitz as he releases the ball, causing an incompletion.

A little later, Addison tries to use the previous “win” against Jackson. He jab-steps and fakes the speed-to-power move and tries to continue outside. This time Jackson’s footwork is better and gets his hands into Addison to win the rep. Good on the rookie here.

This time, it’s Jackson’s old nemesis A.J. Epenesa. Jackson is able to stave off the long-arm with a good two-hand punch that knocks Epenesa off his track to win the rep. When Jackson gets everything right, with his strength he’s tough to beat outside.

This rep is against Jerry Hughes. Jackson’s able to land his right hand just inside of Jerry Hughes’s left shoulder here to get just enough of him to keep Hughes outside. Then he makes him eat some grass. As you can see, Jackson shoots his hands wide. This can be an issue when Jackson’s feet stop. But in this rep, he’s able to keep moving and rides Hughes around the arc to the ground. Not always perfect, but effective.

This rep is also against Hughes and is perhaps the best rep of Jackson in the Bills game. His footwork is clean, his hands are patient, shoots his hands inside. Easy win, and gives Fitz a clean pocket for an easy throw.

Week 3 vs. Jacksonville – Grade: 90%
For those that follow Brian Baldinger on Twitter (and you should be following Baldy if you’re not already), he broke down Austin Jackson against the Jaguars. Here’s his breakdown of the game.

I graded Jackson out at 90% as he had successful snaps on 18 of 20 pass reps, with 6 “No Impact” reps. And really, it should be a 95% grade as he put K’Lavon Chaisson on the ground on one rep, but then pushed him after to get flagged for an Unnecessary Roughness penalty that negated a first-down throw by Fitz.

This is the only other negative rep from the Jacksonville game I had for Jackson. He wasn’t ready for Chaisson’s bull-rush and ends up putting him down right into Fitzpatrick’s legs, which is always dangerous. Fitz still completed the pass to DeVante Parker, but you’d like to see Jackson be able to drop the anchor and reset here versus the smaller Chaisson.

For the most part, as you saw in Baldy’s Breakdown, this game for Jackson was pretty smooth. Here’s one rep against Josh Allen that wasn’t included. Just a nice easy pass set for Jackson. When he gets it all right, he’s good and he’s going to keep getting more consistent over time.

Week 4 vs. Seattle – Grade: 77%
Jackson scored 20 positives to 6 negative grades in 26 snaps with another 7 as “No Impact”. One of the negative grades was a holding penalty where he got beat badly. Better to take the 10 yards and save Fitz than to let your QB get crunched. But overall, another nice day at the office for Jackson until he got hurt. He came back in for another two drives before leaving the game and being replaced by Julie’n Davenport.

I forgot to grab the holding penalty no pun intended. But other than that, Jackson had a pretty smooth game. As I mentioned before, when he gets his technique correct from start to finish, he can make it look pretty easy, just like Laremy Tunsil did in 2018 for Miami in what may have been the best season a Dolphins left tackle has had since Richmond Webb was in aqua in orange, other than maybe Jake Long’s rookie year.

Speaking of former Dolphins, here’s Jackson’s best rep from the Seattle game against Damontre Moore, who had a cup of coffee in Miami in 2015. Great set, great punch, and Jackson just decides to set the anchor and bury Moore into the ground here.

Conclusion – Grade: 78%
Through Jackson’s first four-game, I had him netting a 78% grade on his pass-blocking snaps, with 83 positives out of 106 reps, with another 36 “No Impact” reps. So, in short, when Miami passes the ball roughly 84% of the dropbacks Ryan Fitzpatrick has taken have not been impacted by the left tackle. For a rookie, that’s a pretty good clip. Most of the negative snaps are things that Austin Jackson can clean up with better, more consistent technique. Let’s remember that it took Laremy Tunsil a little bit of the 2017 season to really get back into the swing of playing left tackle after having to stupidly spend 2016 at guard.

Jackson’s finally back into full swing from having donated bone marrow to help save his sister’s life. And while he didn’t get the benefit of preseason games, he seems to have found his footing as a pass-protector. His run-blocking still needs work, and he’s likely never going to be a great rub-blocking left tackle like a Joe Thomas or Tyron Smith. But, I don’t think there’s any problem with him being an “interference” run-blocker like a D’Brickashaw Ferguson, Ryan Clady, or Laremy Tunsil so long as he pass-blocks like those three. He’s not quite there yet in terms of honing in on his technique, but he’s got pretty good footwork to build on, and hopefully, we’ll see him come back in November and continue what was a pretty nice start to the season. FinsUp!

 

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