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And his first game in high school at Long Beach Poly? Did he do anything special in that one?
"I can't remember," Jackson said, laughing. "I'm sure I did."
There is little reason to doubt his audacious instincts. There is little to do, frankly, but marvel. It was only one game - a phrase to be repeated several times, on an hourly basis, until further notice - and it was against a St. Louis Rams team that was 3-13 last season, but Jackson has now officially entered the National Football League with six catches for 106 yards and a 60-yard punt return for dessert.
Despite his head coach's best efforts, there will be no hiding this light under a bushelbasket for very long - not after the Eagles' 38-3 throttling of the Rams; not after this kind of debut.
"I'm not worried about it," Eagles coach Andy Reid said. "In high school, he came in and he had success early and was a great player. He goes to Cal and the same thing happens. The first punt return, he takes it the distance. He's always had these things happen to him, so he knows how to handle it. I give both those young guys [Jackson and kick returner Quintin Demps] a bad time because they bring a great confidence and cockiness to the locker room, and I like that. They'll keep it in perspective."
But what about the rest of us? It is very hard to watch a kid play such a strong first game and not get at least a little carried away. It wasn't the speed part of his game, either. He was wide-open sometimes - everybody was wide-open sometimes - but Jackson did good, savvy work on a couple of 50-50 kinds of balls, including the 47-yard catch on the second play of the game. He just looks like he knows how to play, and Donovan McNabb looks like he trusts him enough to throw those 50-50 balls with confidence.
"I'm never surprised with the success," Jackson said. "I put in the work and just keep putting it in - that's all I really have to go off of. I feel like if you put in the work, you come to the games, it's easy. That's something the vets have been telling me: The harder I work, the easier it'll be on Sunday."
When a team has an offensive game like this one, there are almost always two areas of total domination: offensive line and coaching. That was the obvious fact here. Neither will be emphasized much in the postgame discussion because that is the nature of the business. But this was very clear: that the time McNabb had to operate behind the line was ample and that the mismatches engineered by Reid and offensive coordinator Marty Mornhinweg were abundant. It is the only way receivers get that open.
That said, this Jackson thing is just fueling itself, excitement begetting excitement, confidence begetting confidence. He seems to know it is going to get harder from here, starting next Monday night in Dallas, and he seems not to care.
"It just shows where I come from, Los Angeles, and just growing up, the things I had to go through, obstacles, things like that," Jackson said. "But I'm just very tough. I have a lot of heart inside of me. People would always tell me I was too small, couldn't play, or I wouldn't make it, things like that. Well, it definitely motivated me to get to where I'm at today."
Still, with all of that, Reid has acknowledged riding Jackson this summer. It isn't that he is trying to teach Jackson humility - that would be a waste of breath, it seems - but to teach him to respect the profession.
"He's just a great man," Jackson said. "I respect him as a man first of all. On the field, he's on me. Everybody's on me - players, coaches, coach Marty. Whenever they see something they don't like, and even if they like it, they still mess with me. It's definitely a good feeling. I'm just happy to know I have the coaches on my side."
And then there are the fans. The Linc was officially enraptured by Jackson yesterday. You could almost sense this extra collective burst of excitement every time the ball got near him.
"Sometimes you can hear the fans getting loud and getting crunk and things like that," he said. "It just gives you the extra juice to go out there and make it happen because you know you've got the fans behind you, you've got your teammates, coaches. You can't really lose with everybody on your side.
"The biggest thing for me is just getting better every week. You can't get satisfied. This game was a great game, but it's past."
Which, after peeling away the bravado from an audacious Opening Day, is exactly what
Reid was hoping to hear. *
Send e-mail to
or read his blog, The Idle Rich, at
http://go.philly.com/theidlerich.
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