Kareem Jackson isn’t going anywhere. A deal has been reached for the veteran safety to return to the Broncos, a source told Ian Rapoport of NFL Network (Twitter link). It’s a one-year, $5MM contract, a source told Mike Klis of Denver 9 News (Twitter link).
This isn’t unexpected, as we heard that the door was open for a return not long after the team declined his option and made him a free agent. Jackson signed a three-year, $33MM deal in 2019, and the team saved about $7.1MM in cap space by declining the option on the final year. Now they’ve got their other starting safety spot figured out opposite Justin Simmons, who they just gave a huge extension to.
Jackson started all 16 games for Denver last year, and the long-time vet has now started 153 for his career. The Alabama product was a first-round pick of the Texans all the way back in 2010, and has never played in less than 12 games through 11 pro seasons. He’ll turn 33 in April, but was graded very solidly by Pro Football Focus last year and should still have something left in the tank.
New GM George Paton was aggressive in signing Kyle Fuller and Ronald Darby to play corner, so the secondary is pretty well taken care of with fellow corner Bryce Callahan also returning. With Bradley Chubb and Von Miller returning at edge rusher and Vic Fangio coaching, this Denver defense has the chance to be one of the league’s best units.
Paton said just a few days ago about the safety spot “there’s free agency, there’s a lot of safeties on the market, including Kareem, and then we have the draft. There’s also the trade market. The good thing is we don’t play a game for a while. We have a lot of time.
Apparently he didn’t need too much time.
Broncos building a defense that can hold KC down like Tampa did in the Super Bowl. Not sure about the Darby signing because of him being inconsistent but Fuller and keeping Jackson are huge.
This is a great signing by Denver. I am surprised that Jackson came back, honestly, and for less money. He was superb for the Broncos.
A lot of vets in this unit between Callahan (who Denver is hoping will be available), Darby (who Denver is hoping will be consistently good, which he has the ability to be), Fuller, Jackson, and Simmons. My main curiousity is how they will play Callahan and Fuller. Both are much better in the slot than outside, but I suspect that Fuller may have more speed. Callahan is very instinctive and a great tackler, so I think he’d be best inside.
He’ll, Denver may just run a two linebacker defense and just use Fuller and Callahan both inside and have Ojemudia and Darby guard the boundaries, with two safeties and three down linemen. It would be interesting, but you’d have to have a lot of confidence in run stuffing, where Jackson I guess would come in? I suppose you could get them all on the field together that way. Creative but probably flawed thinking.