In Swap of Cornerbacks, Packers Trade Jackson To Giants For Yiadom

In 19 career starts for Denver and New York, former third-round pick Isaac Yiadom has one interception. He started 10 games last year but was benched twice.

GREEN BAY, Wis. – In a swap of disappointing 2018 draft picks who will get fresh starts, the Green Bay Packers acquired cornerback Isaac Yiadom in a trade with the New York Giants for Josh Jackson.

A source confirmed a report by ESPN.com's Rob Demovsky that Jackson was traded.

Yiadom was a third-round pick by the Denver Broncos in 2018. He played in 29 games with nine starts in two seasons in Denver, with one interception and seven passes defensed. Denver shipped him to the Giants for a seventh-round pick in September. Yiadom played in 16 games with 10 starts. He didn’t intercept any passes and broke up five. According to Pro Football Reference, he allowed a 61.7 percent catch rate and six touchdowns, good for a passer rating of 120.1. That led to Yiadom being benched twice.

Entering the 2018 draft, Jackson was considered a potential first-round pick after a massive final season at Iowa. However, after a promising rookie season, his career fizzled.

How is this for juxtaposition: In his third and final season at Iowa, Jackson intercepted a nation’s-best eight passes and broke up 10 others to finish with 18 passes defensed. In his third season and final season in Green Bay, Jackson had zero interceptions and two passes defensed. With his career trending the wrong way and the addition of first-round pick Eric Stokes, Jackson needed a strong training camp. Instead, on Saturday night against Houston, he gave up three completions on the opening series and 7-of-10 passing for 91 yards overall, according to Pro Football Focus.

At Monday’s practice, Jaire Alexander and Kevin King formed the No. 1 tandem and Stokes and Kabion Ento the No. 2 pairing. Ento moved past Jackson on the depth chart.

It was a swift and steep downturn. In 16 games as a rookie that included 10 starts and 718 snaps from scrimmage, Jackson tallied 10 passes defensed. He had zero passes defensed in merely 103 snaps in 2019 and two PBUs in 331 snaps in 2020. Almost all those snaps last season came when King missed five games due to injury. With King back in action for the final six weeks of the regular season, Jackson was inactive four times and played a not-so-grand total of three snaps from scrimmage in the other two games. He was inactive for both playoff games, too.

With Green Bay, Yiadom will be behind Alexander and King. With New York, he closely watched star cornerback James Bradberry.

“He’s so calm and poised at the point of attack. It was exciting to play with him. I learned so much from him every single game including things he’d see that I could take advantage of. He’d always share that type of stuff with me,” Yiadom told The Giants Wire.

“Bradberry just knows the game so well and the best thing about him is that he never panics. As a cornerback, you can’t panic — and he never panics. He makes the game so easy for himself based off the way he watches film and his approach to the game. He knows everyone expects it from him and he has high expectations for himself.”

Yiadom played at Boston College with running back AJ Dillon. In three seasons with extensive playing time, he had three interceptions and 25 passes defensed. At 6-foot 7/8, he ran his 40 in 4.52 seconds at the 2018 Scouting Combine.

Jackson was the fourth cornerback selected in 2018 while Yiadom was the 11th.

He grew up in Massachusetts as the son of Ghanaian immigrants. The trade to New York took him closer to home.

“Oh yeah, that was the best part,” Yiadom told Telegram.com last year. “Every single time I go home that’s what I look forward to. My parents are from Ghana, so they make a lot of West African food. I love Jollof rice. That’s all I eat all day when I’m home. I can just eat it for lunch, dinner. I never get tired of it and when I’m home I take full advantage of it.”

The Packers have 10 cornerbacks on the roster.

The Packers have to cut their roster to 85 players by 3 p.m. today. They started the day with 88. With the potential addition of a quarterback, they’d be at 89 – meaning they’d have to make four roster moves.