NFL star who’s been fined $1MILLION and suspended twice this season accuses the league of failing to teach defensive players how to avoid illegal hits: ‘I have no clue how I’m supposed to do that’

Denver Broncos safety suspended. Kareem Jackson admittedly didn’t learn his lesson after forfeiting nearly $1 million of his salary for a series of illegal hit-and-runs that resulted in a pair of ejections, multiple fines and six weeks’ loss of wages.

That’s because the NFL isn’t a very good coach, Jackson said.

The 14-year veteran claims the league is singling him out and that the NFL doesn’t have adequate answers to how he should change his hard-hitting style of play to fit today’s game, in which the league disdains the clashes it once celebrated.

Jackson received an audience with Commissioner Roger Goodell two weeks ago after his second suspension and things didn’t go as he had hoped.

“They told me I’m in charge of protecting the offensive guys,” Jackson said Monday night before hosting 50 youths from the Boys and Girls Club of Denver for its annual “Jack Claus Shopping” at Walmart in suburban Parker.

Kareem Jackson says the NFL doesn’t properly train quarterbacks on hitting protocols.

“So I’m not really sure how I protect myself and play and protect them.” But that’s what they told me. And I’m not really sure what to do next while playing this game. So hopefully I’ll figure it out.

“At the end of the day,” Jackson added, “I’m going to go out and play the game the way I’ve played since 2010,” Jackson said.

This should concern coach Sean Payton and Broncos fans.

He received his second suspension for the first tackle he made in his return from his first suspension, when he hit Vikings cornerback Joshua Dobbs in Week 11.

Thanks in large part to the breathtaking, consistent play of his replacement P.J. Lock, the first defensive tackle in team history to record sacks in three straight games, the Broncos (7-6) won four of the five games Jackson missed.

Denver is trying to become the fourth post-merger team to make the playoffs despite starting 1-5.

The Broncos trail the Kansas City Chiefs (8-5) by just one game in the AFC West, and Jackson is eligible to return to practice next week ahead of the Broncos’ Christmas Day game against New England.

They could certainly use their tone-setter, provided he doesn’t get kicked out again.

Jackson was suspended, fined and even expelled – as was the case with Luke Musgrave.

“For me, I think lowering my goal (zone) even more than it is now” is one way to avoid more problems, Jackson said. “As far as trying to protect the guy on the other side, it’s impossible. I have no idea how to do this.”

Jackson waived $837,000 in lost salary in addition to the $89,670 he was fined for unsafe hits this season, although Jackson said his uncalled hit on Chiefs running back Isaiah Pacheco in Week 6 for which he was fined $43,709 was completely voided by the league, but not before Goodell used it as an example of Jackson’s incredible tackles during their Nov. 30 meeting in New York.

Jackson said Goodell asked him why he hit Pacheco the way he did while the running back was going down, and Jackson explained that he had already committed to going low, and that no matter how elite NFL athletes are, no one cannot change its trajectory. in that split second and avoid contact when the player with the ball dodges at the very last moment.

“It’s impossible to play this game and do what you’re asking us to do,” Jackson said. ‘This doesn’t make any sense.’

“I told him that a lot of these contacts are casual,” Jackson said. “Once I commit to something and leave, I can’t change.” Additionally, Jackson said, “I am the last line of defense. My job is to knock him down.”

Two days after the league used the hit on Pacheco to defend Jackson’s suspension, the league “turned around and gave me all my money back for that,” Jackson said.

“And then I thought, ‘Why did you give me back all my money from the Kansas City hit?’ All the other hits are pretty much the same.”

Jackson said he sent Goodell a letter on Dec. 4 thanking him for meeting with him and included clippings of other undetected and unpenalized NFL hits this season.

Jackson believes he’s being singled out because other players aren’t being singled out.

“And I said, ‘I can’t help but think you guys are singling me out because these guys don’t get celebrated, there are no consequences, and these are much worse hits than mine,’” Jackson said.

In an epic tirade on The Stephen A. Smith Show last month, Tom Brady said the standard of play in the NFL had deteriorated in the immediate aftermath of his Feb. 1 retirement, and one of the reasons for the mediocrity he complained about was the league’s insistence that quarterbacks guard rushers from danger.

“The quarterback shouldn’t be protecting the offensive player,” Brady ranted. “The defender must protect himself. I didn’t throw the ball in certain places because I was afraid the player would get knocked out of the game. This is the reality.”

Exactly, Jackson said.

“This is football. Their responsibility and job should be to protect themselves.”