Ex-Air Force star Jordan Jackson aims to bolster Broncos’ DL depth

Jordan Jackson’s phone rang and he knew the decision was in.

Which way was it going? The clock indicated one thing.

Two times waived on cutdown day, though, will make a guy understandably skeptical.

The call came Aug. 27 at about 1:50 p.m., 10 minutes before NFL teams have to be down to 53 players. It was Denver’s defensive line coach, Jamar Cain.

“I was looking at the clock and thinking I didn’t think I could make it up to the facility in time to get cut, so hopefully it was a good call,” Jackson told The Denver Post.

Indeed, Cain was calling to tell Jackson, the third-year defensive lineman out of Air Force, that he’d made the roster.

“Up until then, I was pacing around the house and sitting there waiting, wondering,” Jackson said. “You never really know, honestly. … I thought I had put the work in, but I didn’t know until they told me.”

The next day, head coach Sean Payton said any consternation Jackson felt had been unnecessary.

“We saw it in practice, we saw it in the game,” Payton said. “I would say we’re a little bit more one-gap driven now. I think that’s benefited him. In other words, he can get to an edge. So we were encouraged.

“He wasn’t a borderline decision.”

Jackson spent all of last season on the practice squad and has been with Denver since January 2023 when he signed a futures contract with the team. If general manager George Paton had got his way originally, Jackson might have landed in Denver during the 2022 draft.

Paton said recently that he loved Jackson as a prospect out of Air Force — the standout tackle had 29.5 tackles for loss and 15.5 sacks in his final three seasons there — and wanted to draft him in the late rounds. New Orleans swooped in, though, and took him 194th overall in the sixth round.

“So we monitored him, and then obviously we were able to get him on our roster,” Paton said.

Jackson credits his rise to the roster to the strength he’s added over the past year That’s allowed him to work on little details rather than always being concerned with getting moved by an offensive lineman.

“I’ve been trying to (refine) the things I needed to work on and working on things that I might have thought I was good at, but wasn’t good enough for the league,” Jackson said.

When Zach Allen and John Franklin-Myers didn’t dress for Denver’s preseason opener against Indianapolis, Jackson got some first-team run alongside D.J. Jones and perhaps raised some eyebrows in the process. It was indicative, however, of the way in which he was rising up the ranks in the coaching staff’s eyes.

If there was any doubt by the preseason finale, he erased it with a pair of first-quarter sacks.

“He’s been athletic. He could always rush,” Paton said. “And now he’s gotten stronger, he’s playing with better leverage and learning the defense more. He really fits what (defensive coordinator Vance Joseph) is doing up front. He got better really each and every preseason game, and then obviously finished with a bang. Love the way he goes about his business. He’s smart, tough, athletic and I think he can keep getting better.”

Jackson moved past others like veteran free agent addition Angelo Blackson and a pair of young players in Matt Henningsen and Elijah Garcia, who spent 2023 on the active roster. Now Jackson’s part of a group that the Broncos are banking on being vastly improved.