Vikings in NFL playoffs Monday night: Khyree Jackson ‘watches us’

The Minnesota Vikings have two rookies on their roster who played in Alabama for their NFL playoff game against the Los Angeles Rams on Monday night – kicker Will Reichard and outside linebacker Dallas Turner.

There should be a third – cornerback Khyree Jackson.

Jackson died along with two of his high school teammates in a car accident on July 6 – 15 days before he was scheduled to report for his first NFL training camp.

Jackson joined the Vikings in the fourth round of the April 27 NFL Draft out of Oregon after the cornerback played the previous two seasons with the Crimson Tide. Jackson had signed his first pro contract and participated in Minnesota’s offseason program. He was on summer vacation when he died aged 24.

Vikings defensive coordinator Brian Flores said the Minnesota defense had tried to keep Jackson with them all season.

“When it all happened and I got a chance to talk to the group,” Flores said last week, “the message was: We’re going to honor him with the way we play, which was physical, because he was a physical player, and disciplined and fast. The one thing that I mentioned to those guys at the time was — and it definitely came true—was he was a guy who liked to have fun, liked to have fun playing the game—I think I used the word swaggy, which I don’t usually use on that time – and I think we were too able to.

“But it was a tough loss, certainly early on. It was one of the things that brought the group together early on. In a short period of time, he made a big impact on a lot of people. We talked about honoring him. The best way to that on was through a style of play that we expected or wanted to see from him. Hopefully we’ve done that. And I think he’s watching us and he’s grateful that we’re doing well and play that way.”

The Vikings have also remembered Jackson in other ways.

As there has been for every game this season, a locker will be set up for Jackson for the playoff contest, filled with that gear and jersey No. 31, he would have worn.

The closet will have a Bible open to Jeremiah 29:11, with James 1:12. The former was one of Jackson’s favorite scriptures, and the latter was quoted by Minnesota coach Kevin O’Connell when he spoke at the team’s celebration of Jackson’s life in August.

The Vikings will take the field against the Rams with decals on their helmets bearing Jackson’s initials.

The The NFL team paid the unclaimed portion of Jackson’s $827,148 signing bonus to his estate and contributed $20,000 to his funeral.

The Vikings have tried to stay close to Jackson’s family through what would also have been the cornerback’s rookie season. Jackson’s younger brother, Kolston Jackson, served as honorary captain for Minnesota’s first preseason game. The family attended the team’s rookie weekend in November along with the families of the Vikings’ other first-year players.

Jackson had a tortuous journey to reach the Vikings.

After high school, Jackson attended Arizona Western. But he never played there. The homesick teenager returned to Maryland and got a job at Harris Teeter. But Jackson wasn’t done with football, and to reach the NFL he played wide receiver at Fort Scott Community College in Kansas, then switched to defensive back at East Mississippi Community College. That led to 21 games and one start at Alabama before transferring to Oregon, where he recorded three interceptions in his only season with the Ducks.