Pride of Detroit
Five things to know about new Detroit Lions safety Dan Jackson, who was drafted in the seventh round of the 2025 NFL Draft.
Now a few weeks removed for the Detroit Lions’ 2025 draft, it’s time to finish out our “5 things to know” series with the team’s seventh-round picks.
While Georgia’s Dan Jackson and Dominic Lovett may not be in line for starting jobs, both have good chances to make the initial 53-man roster this year. They both can provide something on special teams, and have the tenacity and work ethic to potentially carve out roles on their respective side of the ball down the line.
Let’s start with Detroit’s first seventh-round pick: former Georgia safety Dan Jackson:
It’s not often that a player at a renowned football program like Georgia works his way up from a zero-star walk-on to a starter, but that’s the unbeaten path Jackson took.
“This is one of the greatest stories of college football that nobody talks about,” Georgia coach Kirby Smart said in 2024. “I mean, the guy didn’t walk on until we called him. He got in school here and said, ‘Hey, coach, I would like to play football at Georgia.’ Like, we didn’t recruit him…This guy showed up at our doorstep, and as a starter, as a competitor, and [he’s] blocking field goals. He didn’t have to come back this year. He came back because he loves this place. He loves Georgia. He don’t do it for him. He don’t do it for money. He’s never asked for anything. He loves the place.”
In his first media session with Detroit media, Jackson explained in his own terms why he opted to work his way up from walk-on, to special teamer, to eventual starter.
“It’s really pretty simple. For one, I wanted to win, and I felt like that was the best chance I had, to be there,” Jackson said. “Two is I wanted to be around the best of the best every day and compete against the best of the best. I think that’s really shaped me – Georgia has really shaped me – into the player I am today.”
Lions general manager Brad Holmes toes the company line when it comes to talking about his drafted players. He very rarely assigns a role to a player before they take the field, because they need to earn that role.
So it was particularly shocking to hear Holmes tell Dan Miller after the draft that he sees Jackson contributing on special teams right away.
“He’s going to be able to contribute four-core (special teams) immediately,” Holmes said.
At Georgia, Jackson logged 568 special teams snaps over four years. Even more amazingly, as a full-time starter at safety last year, he still managed to record a career-high 174 special teams snaps (over 12 snaps a game), and produced an 88.7 PFF special teams grade—good...
