In a press conference lasted over 45 minutes, Andy Reid touched on a variety of subjects including his take on the future of one of the Eagles' most recognizable players - impending free agent DeSean Jackson. Of course, Jackson's rookie contract is set to expire and the Eagles have to decide, as does Jackson, whether the Pro Bowl wide receiver will be back in Philadelphia for the 2012 season (and perhaps beyond).
Jackson had a bit of a tumultuous season in 2011, beginning with his late arrival to training camp on the heels of a holdout. Jackson returned and pledged to dedicate himself to football for the remainder of the season, but he was deactivated for the team's 10th game on the season, against the Arizona Cardinals, after reportedly missing a team meeting. Following that deactivation, Jackson addressed his teammates, apologizing for letting his contract situation distract him from the task at hand - a move that left an impression on Reid.
"I was proud of DeSean for standing up," Reid said Tuesday. "I thought he matured and showed maturity this season. I think he's done that every year he's been here. But he showed it, he stood up and admitted to everybody that he didn't handle things the right way. I will tell you the last six games, he did a nice job for us. I was proud of him for that. We're going through all of that right now. We're looking at everything right now. We haven't come to any conclusions on anything, but we're going through that. Again, you saw progress there. You saw a different attitude the last five or six games there. You've got to make sure you look at that part too."
There are three potential outcomes for Jackson and the Eagles: the two could come to terms on a long-term contract, bringing Jackson back to Philadelphia for the foreseeable future. They could opt to part ways. Or, the Eagles could use their franchise tag on the receiver, giving him a one-year contract that would pay him the average of the top-five wide receiver salaries in the league.
In 2011, Jackson caught 58 passes for 961 yards, the first time since his 2008 rookie season in which he didn't amass at least 1,000 yards receiving, though his 961 yards did lead the Eagles.
"We're going to go through and look at all that," Reid said. "We really haven't gotten to that point ... We're analyzing the free agents, we're analyzing what we did, we went through our team then we're going to analyze the draft and then you kind of put all that together and talk through it, where you have a feel on kind of the whole picture of the personnel side of it."
In other words, Reid gave no indication as to how the Jackson situation will play out. Like the rest of the NFL universe, we'll have to wait and see.
