Of course, Jackson getting here and getting settled was a process unto itself.
The Panthers traded for him on Aug. 22, 2024. So he flew from Seattle to Charlotte for a quick hello, and the next day was on the team plane to Buffalo for the first preseason game.
So thinking back to what he was doing a year from now draws a laugh, because this is all so different.
"It was crazy," he recalled. "Because I flew in, got here at like 11 that night, and then went to sleep, woke up, took a physical all that, and they had the flight to Buffalo and then when I got there, guys were working out and I'm like, bro, I can't do nothing like I've been on the plane for like 8 hours."
So while fighting jet lag, he made Quizlet flash cards for himself to learn the differences between the Seahawks defense and this one.
"I mean, everybody runs the same defenses, but it's just different calls," Jackson said, with the benefit of seeing enough different systems in his career. "So like Cover 2 here might be green, but in Seattle, it was blue, so the first couple weeks I just told myself, all right, green is blue. So I got comfortable in the playbook, and I felt like I was able to just come in and play. I feel like that's a good part of being on multiple teams, you're not learning one thing forever."