Ron Rivera on William Jackson III: ‘We were wrong’

The Washington Commanders traded cornerback William Jackson III to the Pittsburgh Steelers Tuesday ahead of the NFL’s trade deadline.

Jackson was benched last month in the first half of a loss to the Tennessee Titans. He never played for Washington again.

Shortly after his benching, Jackson allegedly requested a trade, which he denied. However, Jackson, who was already dealing with a back injury, remained on Washington’s weekly injury report.

After Washington traded Jackson on Tuesday, head coach Ron Rivera spoke to JP Finlay of NBC Sports Washington, discussing why it didn’t work for Jackson in Washington. Jackson was in the second year of a three-year, $40.5 million contract he signed in March 2021. He spent the first five seasons of his NFL career with the Cincinnati Bengals.

“I think the biggest thing is, more so than anything else, is we looked at what we tried to do with William, and it didn’t work,” Rivera said. “Quite honestly, we didn’t find the fit we were hoping to find. We were looking for a guy that had a specific skillset, that could understand the match coverages and play the match coverages the way we do with everybody else, and he struggled with it because he really is a man-coverage type-guy. So, along the lines of our evaluation process, we were wrong.”

The Commanders definitely got it wrong with Jackson. However, there are some misconceptions about Washington’s defense. Some assume the Commanders never played any man coverage. That’s false. While they were a mostly zone team, they did play some man and Jackson struggled for much of his tenure in Washington.

Finlay asked if the failure to make it work with Jackson was just the business of pro football.

“That is the business of pro football,” Rivera said. “Sometimes you get it right; sometimes you get it wrong. And when you get it wrong, when you recognize it, realize it, it’s time to move on. That’s what we’re trying to do here. We’re trying not to just move on for our sake but also to give William an opportunity to go to another team that knows that they’re going to give this guy a shot to use his skillset and exactly what they do, specifically.”

Story originally appeared on Commanders Wire