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Former USC Star's Career in Jeopardy After Latest NFL Injury

Terrible news has come out of San Francisco 49ers training camp about a former star USC Trojans defender.

By Jason Schandl

Oct 30, 2021; Los Angeles, California, USA; Southern California Trojans linebacker Drake Jackson (99) following the victory against the Arizona Wildcats at United Airlines Field at Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum. Mandatory Credit: Gary A. Vasquez-USA TODAY Sports
Oct 30, 2021; Los Angeles, California, USA; Southern California Trojans linebacker Drake Jackson (99) following the victory against the Arizona Wildcats at United Airlines Field at Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum. Mandatory Credit: Gary A. Vasquez-USA TODAY Sports / Gary A. Vasquez-USA TODAY Sports
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If there's one thing that you hate to see most at any level of football, it's got to be major injuries. College football fans are no strangers to seeing unfortunate injuries completely change the trajectories of players' careers, and that concern doesn't go away when players reach the pros.

USC fans were gutted on Thursday to learn that a former Trojans standout has already been ruled out for another entire NFL season, putting his professional career in jeopardy.

San Francisco 49ers defensive lineman Drake Jackson (a 2022 second-round pick out of USC) has already been ruled out for the entire 2024 NFL season. This comes after already having missed the second half of the 2023 season after being place on I.R. in November.

Jackson underwent knee surgery in January, entered training camp on the PUP list, and now has officially had his 2024 season ended before it began.

There's no indication yet that the knee injury itself is career threatening, but missing 1.5 consecutive seasons this early in his pro career officially puts it in jeopardy. Injuries this serious can be hard to ever fully recover from at 100%. And even if he does, he'll have missed a season and a half of crucial development time while entering the final year of his rookie contract.

His trajectory looked high early in his 49ers career, finishing with 3.0 sacks, 8 pass defenses and an interception as a rookie then adding another 3 sacks with increased playing time before getting hurt in 2023. Now his first fight is to simply set foot on the field in an NFL jersey again. After that he has to worry about developing enough that someone is willing to give him another contract despite the injury concerns.

Jackson played 28 games for the Trojans from 2019 through 2020, racking up 12.5. sacks, 25.0 TFLs and 103 total career tackles. He was named second-team All-Pac-12 in all three seasons.

Trojans fans will be joining 49ers fans in sending Jackson all the good vibes they can as he works to continue his recovery and get his career back on track.

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