In his initial foray into the art world, Steven Jackson sold eight of his uniquely mounted photographs at a recent show in Los Angeles, with one going for as much as $18,000 and one buyer coming from as far away as Hong Kong.
“I’m international!” the Falcons’ running back said.
All of which probably makes the artist known as S. Jax more of a Renaissance man than most of his NFL fraternity members. But Jackson isn’t focused on his skills with a camera or a sketch pad right now. He expected his first season with the Falcons to culminate in a Super Bowl, but instead he labored on a torn hamstring, had the worst season of his football career and felt stressed most days.
Jackson left St. Louis because he wanted to win. Like most others, he got drunk on the expectations for a Falcons franchise that came close to reaching the Super Bowl the year before. But when last season ended, the Rams had a better record (7-9) than the Falcons (4-12). Jackson believed he had let himself, the team and a city down.
“There were quite a few of the years in St. Louis when I shouldered a large burden, and I knew going into every season what I was going into,” Jackson said. “When I came here last year, I kind of believed my own hype. The team was so close to going to the Super Bowl, and I thought I was going to be the missing link. Then reality slaps you. It’s still a team sport.
“This year I know I don’t have to shoulder the burden of carrying the franchise. I’m not the missing piece, I’m just one piece. I feel comfortable knowing that I can still compete at a high level. But all of the unnecessary stress is gone.”
Teams don’t go 4-12 because one player fails. Teams go 4-12 when almost everybody fails. It’s natural to wonder what an NFL running back has left after 10 seasons and at the age of 31, but it’s not fair to judge Jackson on last season, when he rushed for a career-low 543 yards and 3.5 per carry (his previous career average: 4.2). He was injured in Week 2, ironically against St. Louis, and ran behind one of the NFL’s worst offensive lines. Injuries to wide receivers Julio Jones and Roddy White further limited the offense.
Jackson said he is “at peace” now. But it took most of the offseason to find serenity. He was humbled by what happened in 2013.
“When you’re hurt, you want to get out there because you hear the whispers, you hear the press, you know everybody expects something out of you,” he said. “You get caught in the net. But when you get away from it all, you can look at things and evaluate the year accurately. I think I underestimated everything — the move to a new team, to a new city. I had children I had to explain things to. But I won’t have to deal with that now.”
There’s a different vibe in this training camp from last July. There’s no euphoria over the additions of Jackson and Osi Umenyiora and the return of Tony Gonzalez, following the near-miss in the NFC title-game loss to San Francisco. Everybody tends to be grounded after 12-loss seasons.
“I thought for sure we were going to the Super Bowl,” Jackson said. “I feel like we all got slapped by a piece of humble pie.
“I drank some of that Kool-Aid, and the Kool-Aid was passed around.”
The Falcons’ expectations for Jackson in 2014 aren’t much different than they were a year ago. He doesn’t need to be the three-time Pro Bowler he was in St. Louis. He is here to provide a power-running element to an offense that largely still will revolve around quarterback Matt Ryan, Jones and White. His receiving ability also can help make up some of the void left by Gonzalez’s retirement. Talk that rookie Devonta Freeman will push Jackson for the starting job and ultimately win it seems premature.
“We saw in the last couple of games the kind of running back Steven is before he got injured,” coach Mike Smith said. “I like the other guys as well, and we’re going to have multiplicity with our packages. But I’m very confident Steven Jackson is still an elite running back in the NFL.”
Jackson has traveled the world, photographed people and places along the way. He collects art. He also draws and once aspired to be a cartoonist. But he didn’t attempt to draw any parallels between art and sports.
“In the art world you have to make yourself vulnerable, and in the football world you can guard yourself,” he said. “You have 10 other guys on the field with football. In art, it’s just you, and you’re exposed to the critics.”
Football doesn’t have critics?
“It’s not the same,” he said.
There’s only so much he can control.
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