Yet the dramatic decline in 2015 and this year is not an anomaly, nor coincidence. Though his 2015 season ended in week 10 from a knee injury, the numbers don’t lie. In 2012-14, he averaged 150 targets a year or 9.3 per game from Bucs QBs. That number dropped significantly in 2015, with the arrival of Jameis and OC Dirk Koetter, to 6.2 targets per game through to his week 10 injury. So far in 2016, it’s been close to being on par with 6.4 targets per game, but the chemistry has never been there between the young gunslinger and veteran wideout, with 15 receptions for 173 yards and no touchdowns on the 32 targets through 5 games this season.
Some say he is simply getting older. But, at age 33 and after major knee surgery, “Come out and watch practice,” says Jackson, scoffing at the notion his age is catching up to him. “Sometimes what you see on Sundays, doesn’t always translate from what’s reality. I feel great. I still feel like I’m playing at a high level.”
Seems like Koetter is even at a loss on how to fix the situation between the two players. “I would just say that I have seen in my career where sometimes it can drift in and out and the smallest things can get off. If it was easy to just go in there and snap our fingers and fix it, trust me, we would have done it. Sometimes we don’t even know how it got off because it hasn’t always been that way. Has it been that way a little lately? Yes. We’ve got to figure out a way to fix it,”said Dirk Koetter.
There are certainly reasons why Jackson has suffered a decline in this offense, but Koetter sums it up pretty well when he says, “We can talk about it, we can identify it, we can look at it on tape, we can go out there and try to correct it on the field, eventually it has to click or the elements have to change. Those are your options.”
We will see if Koetter can get V-Jax involved out west in San Francisco on Oct 23rd and get this guy the football! Go Bucs baby!