Not much went right for the Bears last season and the list of things that fell short of expectations includes safety Eddie Jackson.
Jackson was a first-team All Pro in 2018 and he made a pair of Pro Bowls in his first four seasons in Chicago, but his performance slipped considerably in the 14 games he played for the Bears last season. If not for more than $24.5 million in dead cap charges, Jackson might not have stuck around through the transition from Matt Nagy to Matt Eberflus as head coach but he did and now he’s working to fix what went wrong last year.
‘‘Yeah, it wasn’t the best at all,’’ Jackson said, via Patrick Finley of the Chicago Sun-Times. ‘‘I think that’s probably one of my worst seasons. I gave up too many deep balls. Just trying to eliminate that. The little things with your eyes, breaking on the ball, attention to details. Little things, little fixes that you could make.’’
Jackson said at this week’s minicamp that Eberflus’ defense is “probably a lot simpler” than the one the Bears have been running because “you just see what’s in front of you and play.” Simplicity will be bliss for the Bears defense if it means Jackson returns to the form he showed earlier in his career.