The Delaware State coach reflects on his dad’s desire for his sons to be great as a new documentary examines the family behind his NFL journey.
DeSean Jackson built a decorated NFL career largely due to his talents and the influence of his father, Bill Jackson. An everyman, the elder Jackson pushed the NFL on both of his sons, DeSean and Byron, as a means for them to achieve the “American Dream.”
For DeSean, who spent 15 years at the highest level in football, the discipline and drive from his father was love … and another form of education.
“It taught me principles, it taught me to have a goal, to have a passion,” DeSean told Richard Taite of the “We’re Out Of Time” podcast. “You know, you can call it pressure, but, you know, for me, I was a young kid that loved sports. It was something about the competitive nature that I wanted to, you know, just go outside and compete with my friends. And I wanted to be the best doing it.”
The story of the Jacksons, from DeSean’s older brother Byron to their father, comes front and center in the new Amazon documentary, “Go Deep: The DeSean Jackson Story.” Byron, a practice-squad receiver for the Kansas City Chiefs, turned the camera on his younger brother and documented his rise to the NFL. The result is 35 years’ worth of footage involving the sons of Bill Jackson, their respective football lives, and the father who saw the game as a ticket out.
The film offers a raw, unflinching look at a fatherhood story beneath a football story, with Byron, at one point, excommunicated from the family and turning his camera on DeSean to remain connected. “I’m not gonna let my dad ruin my little brother’s passion like he did mine,” Byron says in the documentary. “I just felt like I could be a barrier.”
The younger Jackson felt his father’s passion and although many might consider it “tough love” or “pressure,” DeSean refers to it as “support.”
“So, I think to have the support, people can say it’s pressure, but I look at it as really having the support, having that drive, having somebody to extra motivate you when you didn’t want to work out, when you didn’t want to go do the extracurricular sports, you know?” he said of his father, who passed away from pancreatic cancer in 2009. “So, for me, I didn’t really understand it at a young age, you know, because at that young age it probably was pressure. But the older I got, it was like, you know what? He cares, you know? And it’s love. It goes back to that love word.”
That love has translated to Jackson’s new life as a head football coach at Delaware State.
After a surprise campaign in 2025 that saw him win eight games in his debut season and lead the HBCU within one game of the MEAC title. This season, the Hornets are 4-3, but as MEAC play begins, he and Delaware State are thinking about a conference title and a spot in the Celebration Bowl.
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