Now a few weeks removed for the Detroit Lions’ 2025 draft, it’s time to finish out our “5 things to know” series with the team’s seventh-round picks.
While Georgia’s Dan Jackson and Dominic Lovett may not be in line for starting jobs, both have good chances to make the initial 53-man roster this year. They both can provide something on special teams, and have the tenacity and work ethic to potentially carve out roles on their respective side of the ball down the line.
Let’s start with Detroit’s first seventh-round pick: former Georgia safety Dan Jackson:
“One of the greatest stories in college football”
It’s not often that a player at a renowned football program like Georgia works his way up from a zero-star walk-on to a starter, but that’s the unbeaten path Jackson took.
“This is one of the greatest stories of college football that nobody talks about,” Georgia coach Kirby Smart said in 2024. “I mean, the guy didn’t walk on until we called him. He got in school here and said, ‘Hey, coach, I would like to play football at Georgia.’ Like, we didn’t recruit him…This guy showed up at our doorstep, and as a starter, as a competitor, and [he’s] blocking field goals. He didn’t have to come back this year. He came back because he loves this place. He loves Georgia. He don’t do it for him. He don’t do it for money. He’s never asked for anything. He loves the place.”
In his first media session with Detroit media, Jackson explained in his own terms why he opted to work his way up from walk-on, to special teamer, to eventual starter.
“It’s really pretty simple. For one, I wanted to win, and I felt like that was the best chance I had, to be there,” Jackson said. “Two is I wanted to be around the best of the best every day and compete against the best of the best. I think that’s really shaped me – Georgia has really shaped me – into the player I am today.”
He’s a four-core special teamer out of the box
Lions general manager Brad Holmes toes the company line when it comes to talking about his drafted players. He very rarely assigns a role to a player before they take the field, because they need to earn that role.
So it was particularly shocking to hear Holmes tell Dan Miller after the draft that he sees Jackson contributing on special teams right away.
“He’s going to be able to contribute four-core (special teams) immediately,” Holmes said.
At Georgia, Jackson logged 568 special teams snaps over four years. Even more amazingly, as a full-time starter at safety last year, he still managed to record a career-high 174 special teams snaps (over 12 snaps a game), and produced an 88.7 PFF special teams grade—good for 19th in the nation (minimum 100 snaps).
He has a blocked punt, and a blocked field goal vs. Auburn on his resume.
Jackson had a critical forced turnover that saved Georgia’s 2024 season
The Bulldogs were down against in-state rival Georgia Tech, 27-20, right near the two-minute warning. With Tech facing a third-and-1, they were close to icing the game. Georgia was 9-2 at the time, and a loss would pretty much end any hopes at making the College Football Playoffs.
But on a quarterback draw, Jackson laid a huge hit, forced a fumble, and the Bulldogs recovered.
Georgia would go on to win the game in eight overtimes and squeeze into the playoffs.
His nickname is “Dirty Dan”
To be clear, this is a nickname of love, not one he gained as a reputation of being dirty. Here’s Jackson explaining the hilarious origins of the nickname during a 2021 press conference:
“That’s something that (Eric) Stokes and some of those other DBs gave me this spring, and I’ve accepted it. I didn’t know I was that bad looking, but, nah, I’m gonna go with it.”
He’s smart
One particular quote from Holmes stuck out from me during draft week.
“The more you dig into him you find out why he’s back there making all the calls, running the show for Kirby Smart’s defense,” Holmes said of Jackson.
Indeed, if you do more digging into Jackson, you see tons of Georgia fans predicting that Jackson will one day be a football coach. And throughout his long Georgia career, there were multiple occasions of his head coach praising his intelligence to the media.
“Dan’s intelligent. Dan’s smart,” Smart said in 2021. “I don’t know how many people know Dan, he’s a young man who is a walk-on in our program. He got into school at Georgia on his own. He’s a great student. Just to do that is pretty incredible and he’s smart. He tested well.”
He led the special teams units early in his Georgia career, and he was a captain as a defensive starter in 2024. I would not be surprised if Jackson eventually earned the special teams captain role in Detroit that is now vacant after Jalen Reeves-Maybin was released.
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