Spotlight Will Be On Houston Texans Kareem Jackson This Season

Assuming there is a NFL football season this year there will be one Houston Texans cornerback focused on putting last year behind him and controlling this seasons personal performance.

Some analysts felt the Houston Texans reached a bit when the team picked Kareem Jackson in last years NFL Draft. There is no question they needed to address the cornerback position due to the unevitable departure of Dunta Robinson. The Texans may not have paniced but if they did they displayed it for the world to see. The Houston Texans surprised the football community by making Kareem Jackson the second cornerback taken in the draft ahead of others such as Devon McCourty and Kyle Wilson who both rated higher on most draft analyst’s big boards.

Obviously General Manager Rick Smith and the Texans had Jackson rated higher than all other cornerbacks except Joe Haden who had went earlier to the Cleveland Browns. However the high overall pick status did not translate over onto the field for Kareem Jackson. There were several times when Jackson seemed lost on the field. Many times being constantly on television giving chase to a player who had just recently beat Kareem Jackson for a long play down the sideline.

Did the Houston Texans swing for the fences only to pop-up a foul ball right into the ever-ready glove of an eagerly awaiting catcher? New defensive backs coach, Vance Joseph recently told Nick Scurfield of Blog.HoustonTexans.com “He (Joseph) has watched every game from last season 5 times and has watched every practice going back through training camp. (Joseph) said that Kareem Jackson is a very good zone player who needs a lot of work on his man-to-man technique.”

Now as Alan Burge of the Houston Examiner points out in his article Kareem Jackson, Then and Now. How did Jackson go from being the most ‘game ready’ corner to needing ‘a lot of work on man technique’ in the span of a year?

Without any answers as to what exactly failed Kareem Jackson last year we can be certain that a dismal pass rush indeed doesn’t help the secondary situation or the lack there of a secondary. One thing that can be answered for certain. And that being that the Houston Texans probably could have either traded down and waited to draft Jackson until a little later or they should have went with the player who appears to be the more NFL ready cornerback of the two and that player being Devon McCourty.

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