Chargers Make Ex-Patriot J.C. Jackson Healthy Scratch Amid Struggles

J.C. Jackson’s career with the Chargers hasn’t gone the way he or the team hoped it would. But it reached a new low Sunday morning.

Los Angeles made the veteran cornerback a healthy scratch for its Week 3 road game against the Minnesota Vikings. It’s the first time Jackson has been a healthy inactive since Week 6 of the 2018 season when he was a rookie with the New England Patriots.

Jackson is in the second year of a five-year, $82.5 million contract he signed in 2022. The Patriots are scheduled to host the Chargers for a Dec. 3 matchup, which Jackson recently called a “revenge game.”

Jackson’s first campaign in Los Angeles got off to a rough start, as he earned a miserable 28.7 Pro Football Focus grade in five games before suffering a season-ending knee injury. And he wasn’t much better in his first two games this season, giving up six catches on 13 targets for 118 yards and a touchdown, per PFF’s stat tracking, while registering one interception.

At 27 years old, Jackson still has plenty of time to get his career back on track. And he might still be feeling lingering effects from the knee injury.

But at this point, the former Patriots star isn’t a starting-caliber cornerback, and the franchise that gave him a lucrative contract probably feels buyer’s remorse.