What Bowser can do is help the team he’s on now. Less than two weeks from the start of training camp, he’s well positioned. After an offseason in which linebackers coach Mike Macdonald identified Bowser as maybe the unit’s top performer, the second-year player is approaching preseason with the kind of hype befitting a former second-round pick.
Defensive coordinator Don “Wink” Martindale has praised him in private, Bowser said. So has Macdonald. Quarterback Robert Griffin III complimented his game speed. Other teammates, “guys who’ve been in the league, who understand,” have acknowledged his behind-the-scenes progress.
“It’s definitely humbling just knowing I played on the field that they’re playing on right now,” Jackson said Friday during his second annual youth football camp at Wheatley. “Coming up, nobody thought I would be in the NFL. I was a skinny dude, no weight. I was always doubted. I was doubted by coaches here. At the end of the day, I was blessed to go to the NFL.”
Over the course of the season, Jackson was targeted 43 times in coverage but allowed just 15 of them to be caught – which equates to a catch rate of just 34.9 percent. That was the best catch rate by a considerable distance last season and beat the next closest player to him (Casey Hayward – 42.7 percent) by almost 10 percentage points. However, it wasn’t just the best mark among cornerbacks last year, it was the best mark that we’ve ever recorded in 12 years of grading, with the next best season performance being that of Darrelle Revis in 2009, when he allowed just 36.9 percent of the passes thrown his way to be caught.