Inside the Desean Numbers

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2013 was a career-best year for Desean Jackson.  He had 1332 yards and 9TDs and earned a spot in the Pro Bowl.  How could his release be a “football decision” as insisted by Chip Kelly? Earlier we looked at Desean’s playoff performance after a Jeff McLane tweet indicated that Jeff Lurie mentioned playoff stats regarding his release.

Let’s look inside Desean Jackson’s 2013 stats.

5 games stand out from Desean’s 2013 year.  They are: Raiders, Vikings, Chargers, at Washington and at Giants.

Raiders: 150 yards, 1 TD
Vikings: 195 yards, 1 TD
Chargers: 193 yards, 1 TD
at Giants: 132 yards, 1 TD
at Redskins: 104 yards, 1TD

How did those five defenses rank in the league against the pass:

Raiders – 28th
Vikings – 31st
Chargers – 29th
Giants – 10th
Redskins – 20th

The Giants were a decent defense.  The rest, kind of junk against the pass.  In the eleven other games combined, Desean had 554 yards and 4 touchdowns.

From the outside looking in, this looks like a case where postseason performance, consistency during the regular season, salary, and headaches all combined to make Desean expendable for Chip Kelly and the Eagles.