Despite being ‘undersized,’ Kentucky’s Drake Jackson could be an NFL starter
Drake Jackson arrived at the University of Kentucky as a heralded offensive line recruit, but even at that time carried the burden of being “undersized.” That’s the biggest knock on Jackson, who measured in at a little under 6-foot-2, when it comes to his potential as an NFL prospect.
That chip on his shoulder has motivated him for the last half-decade, and he sees no reason why it should suddenly be any less prompting now, even though he thinks it’s less of a negative trait than some prognosticators believe.
“I think once you lose that chip, you stop getting better and you’ve kind of lost your love of the game,” Jackson told reporters Tuesday ahead of his participation in Kentucky’s Pro Day on Wednesday. “You’ve got to find something that motivates you and that absolutely motivates me. That’s something Coach (John) Schlarman taught us.”
Of UK’s 11 Pro Day participants, Jackson was among the seven who were official invitees to the NFL’s Combine, this year happening “virtually” during campus pro days instead of at a single site over the course of a week. Jackson received a late invitation to the Senior Bowl, where he drew favorable reviews despite — or maybe, in some cases, due to — playing through a shoulder injury.
The diagnosis after? A grade-one sprain of his acromioclavicular (AC) joint that required “only” a month to heal.
“You really want to take advantage of that opportunity, so even though I hurt my shoulder, you gotta fight through it and play through it,” Jackson said. “’Because you were given that opportunity, so you gotta make something of it.”
Jackson is likely to be selected in middle-to-late rounds of the NFL Draft, set for the end of April. Kyle Crabbs of The Draft Network projects him as a starter-level center if drafted into the right scheme.
“As is, I like him most in an offense that implements a lot of (West Coast offense) and inside zone concepts,” Crabbs wrote. “He’s not a high-level traits player and he’s not going to offer versatility to move around the line, but Jackson is proficient at what he does and is a perfect example of a competent (inside offensive lineman) that can be found in the middle rounds of the NFL Draft.”
Current UK offensive coordinator Liam Coen didn’t get to coach Jackson but, from what he’s seen and heard from him, thinks he compares favorably to former NFL center John Sullivan, who starred for Notre Dame before playing 11 years in the league.
Sullivan was a sixth-round pick who spent most of his career with the Minnesota Vikings but finished it with the L.A. Rams, for whom Coen was an assistant through the most recent playoffs.
“The type of conversations that Sully and Sean (McVay) would have would just go over a lot of people’s heads,” Coen said. “Drake has that level of understanding about the game. ... He’s obviously done this at a high level for a number of years and I can only foresee him continuing to do so. I do believe with the amount of things that are on centers in the NFL, especially maybe going somewhere where they don’t want too much on the quarterback or have a younger quarterback that they don’t want to put some of those things on, I do think Drake would be a great fit in some of those systems.”
Jackson was able to speak with all 32 NFL teams briefly while at the Senior Bowl, and says since then a handful have been in contact to talk further about football specifics and to get a sense of his personality. They like the inside-zone technique he demonstrated while at Kentucky, and the level of mastery he showed as a center tasked with a lot of responsibility in the Wildcats’ offense under former coordinator Eddie Gran and the late Schlarman.
Football IQ is an “intangible” in which Jackson takes a lot of pride. He got a notion of how much of a separator it can be when he was at the Senior Bowl, where players had to learn parts of an offense overnight.
“You could see the guys who had a high IQ and the guys who didn’t,” Jackson said.
However long his professional football career lasts, Jackson seems destined for a second career in coaching or media. As intelligent as he is on the football field, he’s just as strong a speaker of it away from it.
He’s hard to crack, too: during a Zoom interview session with reporters, off-screen antics played out in front of him. He grinned a bit but never burst out in the laughter likely sought by the other party. Eventually a possible culprit — former UK star and current Miami Dolphins receiver Lynn Bowden — crashed the podium. He gave his former teammate a quick shoulder rub and a simple endorsement.
“Best center in the draft, ya hear me?”
This story was originally published March 30, 2021 at 5:15 PM.
