NFC Notes: Jonah Jackson, Bears, Buccaneers, Panthers

Bears

Bears’ new G Jonah Jackson joins the team after playing the first four years of his career at the Lions under Ben Johnson. He’s excited to be reunited with Chicago’s head coach. 

“He knows how to make things happen,” Jackson said, via Larry Mayer of the team’s site. “He’s a great play-caller, very in-depth on his play designs. Guys like playing for him because he knows how to make the most of each play for all of his players. He looks at the bigger picture and not just plays that he’s calling.”

Jackson commented that a lot of his conversations with Johnson are not related to football. 

“We talked about life, fatherhood, being a father to daughters,” Jackson said. “[He has] a lot of good qualities. Off the field, he’s personable; on the field, he’s just looking for that dagger.”

Jackson quickly earned a starting role in Detroit after being drafted in 2020. He said it’s important to always understand his assignment and was glad to have veterans around him like Frank Ragnow and Taylor Decker. 

“You have to be able to know what you’re doing, your assignment and everything, and then just trust in your technique,” Jackson said. “Luckily, I had good veterans next to me in Frank Ragnow and Taylor Decker to instill that confidence in me to ensure that I was doing the right thing, and I trusted my abilities to be able to execute my job on the field, and it kind of made that transition easy.”

Buccaneers

• The Buccaneers have hired Zach Beistline as their new director of football research after he spent the last 12 years with the Jaguars, working as an analyst and director of game management. (Greg Auman)
• Kansas State CB Jacob Parrish had an official 30 visit with the Buccaneers. (Justin Melo)

Panthers

Panthers GM Dan Morgan said the team’s free agency has so far been a success and added that they aren’t done adding to their roster.

“Yeah, I think we pretty much hit on all our targets,” Morgan said, via Panthers Wire. “Obviously, the Milton Williams thing—that fell through. But we’re really excited about ‘Turk’ [Tershawn Wharton] and what he brings. But yeah, we’re excited about those guys that we signed. I do think it’s gonna allow us to be flexible in the draft. But like I said before, we were gonna build our defensive front. I think we did that. We signed three guys there. So I think at each level—defensive line, linebacker, on the backend with Tre’von [Moehrig]—I think we addressed some needs that we have. We’re far from done. There’s a lot of work to do. And we’re excited about the draft. We have nine picks, and we’re gonna go attack it.”

Morgan added that the team will look to add to the back end of the defense and said that there is still free agents as well as players in the draft that can help them in that area.

“There’s a few guys on the street that we like, that we think can help us. We’ll see what happens there,” he said. “In the draft, I think there’s a good crop of safeties there, too. So we know that that’s a position that we need to address. The numbers aren’t where they need to be there. But we’ll get there. We just gotta stay, stay with the plan and let it happen.“