Short-Armed Asa Jackson May Cast Lengthy Shadow

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Short-Armed Asa Jackson May Cast Lengthy Shadow

It is well-known that penguins do not possess long wingspans. Neither does Ravens fifth-round pick Asa Jackson.

But for about a year, there was a perception that the two had interacted through a program for the Society for Prevention of Cruelty to Animals by which Jackson, a Cal Poly cornerback and punt returner, had nursed injured penguins back to good health, along with other volunteers. As it turns out, the story was false.

Maybe the Ravens have themselves a player that could have been one of Batman's villains ... not a penguin, perhaps, but a joker.

"I wish it was true, but I actually just made that up," Jackson told Pro Football Weekly at the annual Scouting Combine in February. "Completely made up, fabricated. I'm sorry for anybody out there that likes penguins, but yeah, no, it was just a complete joke.

"I didn't realize it was going to stick like this. People have been asking me about this for the past year. It's turned into a pretty funny joke. I don't work with penguins, but maybe I will in the future, just because it's been sticking so well."

The Ravens would be satisfied if the 5-foot-10, 197-pound Jackson, taken with the 169th overall pick, sticks to NFL wide receivers as a slot and nickel cornerback and pastes himself into a punt- and kick-return role as well.

At first blush, Jackson's penguin-like arm length -- 28 5/8 inches -- won't serve him well as he tries to jam receivers off the line of scrimmage. At Cal Poly, though, he averaged 50 tackles per year while not allowing a touchdown during his final three seasons, yielding just 3 yards per pass attempt, 9 per completion and a minuscule 34 percent completion rate in his part of the field.

"There's nothing I can do about my wingspan and my hands," Jackson told PFW. "I try to overcome it just with my athleticism, No. 1, and also through my jumping ability and also great coverage.

"If you're fast in and out of your breaks, it doesn't matter how long your arms are. If you catch the ball right in here and take it in for six [points], it doesn't matter how long my arms are."

Cornerback is a position that went from a Ravens question mark a year ago to one of the strongest groups on the team, thanks to the improved play of Lardarius Webb, who didn't allow a score all year. Then there were the looming presence and deceptive strength of 6-foot-2 Cary Williams, the physicality of 2011 first-round pick Jimmy Smith and the promise of fast-rising youngster Danny Gorrer.

Because coverage works hand in hand with pass rush, it appears the Baltimore cover men are going to have to step up their game even more in the wake of the Achilles tendon injury Terrell Suggs suffered, which could keep the Ravens' all-time leading sack artist out for the entire season.

During his Cal Poly career, Jackson intercepted eight passes and returned those pickoffs for 307 yards, an astounding 38-yard rate. This statistic outstrips the 25.7 yards-per-interception pace set by his future teammate and one of the NFL's best, Ravens free safety Ed Reed.

"On some of [Jackson's] interceptions," Ravens general manager Ozzie Newsome said during draft weekend, "[we can] see his ability to return for touchdowns. ... Some of the skills he displayed once he got the ball in his hands when he intercepted the ball were impressive."

It's no secret that the NFL has turned pass-happy during recent years, requiring teams to not only load up their rosters with more wide receivers, but include more coverage men to account for them downfield.

Jackson's speed is seen as average; he ran a 4.51-second 40-yard dash time at the combine, but dropped that to 4.48 during a pre-draft Pro Day workout. His 19 repetitions at the Combine-standard 225-pound bench-press workout were an encouraging sign.

Despite going to a small school, Jackson put up numbers that were common knowledge to all NFL teams looking for someone with his skill set. Decades ago, a player like Jackson would have gotten lost in the shuffle, but with the proliferation of media and scouting services through the years, almost all players are noticed.

It resulted in what Ravens player personnel director Eric DeCosta called "a funny kind of draft," in which the team had to get creative, because many players seemed to be ranked in similar positions on every team's ranking board.

In his yearly post-draft baseball analogy, DeCosta didn't use his usual "home runs" or "triples" draft summation. Instead, he said the Ravens had to "manufacture runs."

"You have to be on your A game," Newsome said. "Other people have just as much information as you have and are able to watch the same plays that you're watching. So, I think access and the information has allowed everybody else to kind of hone in.

"But, what it takes to win in this league, I think every team understands that now. So again, that draws a lot of the same players."

During the current salary-cap age, players that can perform more than one role are especially valued. Most rookies have to earn their keep on special teams, which makes Jackson's return skills especially valuable.

Jackson averaged 14 yards per punt return for Cal Poly, a rate that would lead the NFL practically every year, and was third best in the Football Championship Subdivision (formerly Division I-AA).

The Ravens are going to need that kind of production if they want to keep starters such as Webb out of the return mix. Despite coach John Harbaugh's desire to have as many options as possible at every position, in this one case, a singular presence might be most helpful.

That's because last year's Ravens squad featured a staggering 11 different players that returned at least one kick -- a team single-season record -- and four different punt returners, which ties a team mark set during six other seasons.

The team's punt-return average, which Webb keyed for the most part, rose from 7.4 yards per return in 2010 to 9.6 in 2011, with the kick-return rate staying the same at almost 25 yards per runback. But the Ravens' special-teams units, mostly because of poor coverage, fell from eighth best in the league to 24th, according to the annual Dallas Morning News rankings.

"[Jackson] has done some punt returns," DeCosta said after the draft. "He doesn't have an extensive experience doing both. He is a quick-footed guy. He has some suddenness.

"... You can see some burst and some twitch. He catches the ball pretty well. He'll be a guy that can go back there and compete. We're not going to anoint him as the punt and kick returner, but we think he has a chance to be a guy that can compete with some other guys."

It seems Jackson simply wants a chance to get on the field.

"As much as I do enjoy playing defense, you don't get your hands on the ball," Jackson told PFW. "You get it maybe seven or eight times a year, at least for me. Getting the ball back in my hands on returns is a bit of a throwback to high school.

"You know what? I'm one of those dudes where as long as I'm on the field, I don't really care where I play. Other than punter and kicker, as long as I'm on the field, I don't have a problem with it at all. I really like the defensive side of the ball, since I'm doing the hitting rather than getting hit, so that worked out nicely for me."

Jackson turns 23 years old Dec. 2, the day the Ravens play their annual home game against the Pittsburgh Steelers.

If he makes any kind of play that day, that would work out nicely for the Ravens, while the Steelers would end up squawking mad, sort of like penguins.