Derek Cox or JC Jackson?

Derek Cox (2013 Chargers)
• 16 games played
• 38 tackles, 1 INT, 7 passes defended
• Benched multiple times for blown coverages
• Signed 4 yrs / $20M — cut after 1 year
• Underperformed, but at least stayed healthy and played a full season

⸻

J.C. Jackson (2022–23 Chargers)
• 5 games played before major injuries
• Very poor coverage performance early on
• Benched vs. Denver, then ruptured patellar tendon
• Signed 5 yrs / $82.5M — massive contract, traded after a year
• Provided almost no on-field value relative to contract

22 comments

  2. JC Jackson was not only a detriment to the team on the field but he was also off the field. Derek cox was bad but I do think he cared. JC just wanted his pay cheque.

  5. worse is subjective, I go with JC Jackson, at that time especially the patriots weren’t going to let go of a baller, and iirc most players especially defensive after leaving that scheme showed their inability to be effective, to massive overpay despite those red flags was idiotic

  6. Derek Cox – $5m per year

    JC Jackson – $16.5m per year

    That pretty much settles the debate right there, I think.

  9. JC by a long shot. Seemed like such a good idea on paper in the offseason- I was initially so excited by the signing.

  10. Hindsight is 20/20

    Nearly everyone in this sub including me, was ecastic when all the rumors were flying around that JC Jackson to the Chargers was a done deal and a announcement was incoming.

    Yeah he wasn’t a good scheme fit, but he had good ball awareness and athleticism and we were hopefull that Staley would utilize him well.

    Thats just how life goes, you take a gamble and sometimes it just doesn’t work out. The best things Telesco did in his crappy tenure here was swing big in the 2022 offseason and got both Mack and JC. Let’s not forget how we felt and all the hype we had in March of that year. Unfortunately it just didn’t work out with a Jackson.

  11. Cox jump scare.. I genuinely hated this dude seriously. Still it’s JC Jackson easily dude got surgery like a month before the season, and I knew it was over with him.

  12. Just realized Cox never played in another NFL game after his 1 year with the Chargers… how did he fall so fast?

    He obviously wasn’t great but he had put up good numbers in Jacksonville before we got him.

    There really wasn’t a single team willing to sign him even as a depth piece? (I do see his picture on Football Reference is in a Vikings jersey so I guess at least 1 team tried, just weird he never saw the field again)

  13. My biggest regret was buying a JC Jackson jersey as soon as he signed. Sometimes we must live with the mistakes we make in life.

  15. The JC Jackson signing PISSED me off when Charvarius Ward was there. Much cheaper signing and still a VERY solid CB, plus generally speaking I’ve never been a fan of Patriots FA’s in the past as Belichick seemed to find guys that fit his system really well and his system only.

  18. JC jackson is basically the worst non QB FA signing of all time. Basically impossible to be worse than what he was putting out. And I remember how bad Derek cox was

    If JC stayed healthy in 2022, they probably miss the playoffs tbh. He was bad enough to lose games by himself

  21. JC Jackson left us with $20M dead cap during a year we already had salary cap problems. We could have kept Keenan if we hadn’t signed Jackson. That’s the type of impact this sh*t head had.

    Edit: to be put that in perspective – he was the third highest salary cap hit in 2024. Only Bosa and Mack were higher than him.

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