DeSean Jackson showed up at Eagles training camp and said he wouldn’t be a distraction.
Off the field, anyway.
On the field, it’s pretty hard not to be a distraction when you’re clearly the best player on it. None of the Eagles’ trio of vaunted cornerbacks could keep up with the electrifying Jackson yesterday, as he put on a clinic in his first practice with the team following a brief holdout.
“DeSean is a little different from us regular people,” said Eagles offensive coordinator Marty Mornhinweg. “DeSean can, he’s just got such a uniquely high level of talent. He’s fast, he’s quick, he’s athletic, he’s smooth, he’s natural, he’s smart, he’s got all of those things and so he’s quite different. And he had fresh legs as well.”
At one point, Jackson went up to Mornhinweg, diagnosed the coverage and told the coach that he could go deep, since safety Kurt Coleman was “squatting” on him.
“That was half a joke, but he did do that,” Mornhinweg said.
No matter which coverage the defense threw at Jackson, he beat it. And it didn’t matter if it was Nnamdi Asomugha, Dominique Rodgers-Cromartie or Asante Samuel, his favorite victim. Jackson caught three would-be TDs against Samuel.
“We always have great competition and we’ve got some great, great cover men on this football team on the defensive side, so it only makes both sides better,” Mornhinweg said.
The Eagles will hold an abbreviated workout today, then leave Lehigh.
