It was the first day of joint practices between the Vikings and the New England Patriots last month and a packed house at TCO Performance Center was flush with fans waiting for a reason to get up out of their seats.
Enter rookie left guard Donovan Jackson, who the Vikings selected in first round of the 2025 NFL Draft.
Houston Texans defensive lineman Marlon Davidson, left, defends against Minnesota Vikings guard Donovan Jackson (74) during the first half of an NFL preseason football game, Saturday, Aug. 9, 2025, in Minneapolis. (AP Photo/Abbie Parr)
On a designed screen pass, veteran running back Aaron Jones caught the ball in space, prompting Jackson to take off in a dead sprint to clear a path. As he barreled into the open field like a freight train, Jackson spotted Patriots safety Jaylinn Hawkins in front of him.
“I was like, ‘I’ve got to go get that,’” Jackson said. “That’s kind of my mentality out there.”
That manifested itself in real time, as Jackson pancaked Hawkins with thunderous block, then immediately flattened another defender for good measure.
“It was a sight to see,” young quarterback J.J. McCarthy said. “I love how fired up he got after that.”
The ferociousness Jackson showed on that screen pass doesn’t seem possible given his personality on the surface. Just talk to him for a few minutes. It’s hard to imagine him getting aggressive at any point.
“He’s almost like a gentle giant,” Jones said. “As soon as he steps between those lines, the switch is flipped.”
The passion that burns inside Jackson allows him to go to a different place in his mind when he puts the pads on. It’s been that way ever since he was a rising star at Episcopal High School in Bellaire, Texas.
That’s something Episcopal head coach Steve Leisz and offensive line coach Kary Kemble noticed about Jackson as soon as they started working with him. They would see a happy go lucky kid walking the hallways, then an uncaged animal when it was time to lace up the cleats.
“He could get mean,” Leisz said. “That’s a gift to be able to do it.”
“He had a nasty side,” Kemble said. “You realized that pretty quickly.”
The highlights of Jackson speak for themselves. It was the stuff of legends. It wasn’t unusual to see him destroy a defensive lineman at the point of attack, then level a linebacker in the same sequence.
There’s a reason he was the No. 1 interior offensive lineman in nation before signing his letter of intent with Ohio State. It didn’t matter who lined up across from him. He was man among boys.
It got to the point that Leisz often found himself arguing with officials about Jackson.
“They would call him for holding on clean plays,” Leisz said. “They didn’t know how to officiate him because he was so dominant.”
Though the dominance would occasionally draw a flag that maybe shouldn’t have been thrown, it also allowed Kemble to draw up certain plays that only worked because he had Jackson anchoring the group.
“I could leave him alone on the left side and he would take care of everything over there,” Kemble said. “We would have some schemes where it’d be like, ‘We don’t have enough blockers.’ I would be like, ‘We have Donovan over there. Trust me. We’re going to be OK.’”
As he reflected on how dominant Jackson was back then, Kemble pointed to the state championship game between Episcopal and its bitter rival, Kincaid. It was a close game coming out of halftime when Leisz and Kemble decided enough was enough.
“We got the whole offensive line together and we said, ‘We’re not throwing the ball. Not anymore. We’re going to run the ball and take over the game,’” Kemble said. “I remember Donovan’s eyes lit up. He was like, ‘You’re putting the game on my back?’ I was like, ‘Yes we are.’”
The result was Episcopal literally running away with a 42-21 win over Kincaid.
“We went out and dominated on the ground,” Kemble said. “They knew what was coming and did everything they could to try and stop it. They just couldn’t do anything. He was an unstoppable force that night.”
As the state championship game was starting to get out of hand, Jackson wandered over the Leisz on the sideline.
“He put his arm around me and told me, ‘We broke them,’” Leisz said. “He said that because he knew the game was over.”
Those stories about Jackson make it easy to think back to him wowing the crowd at joint practices. That was an important moment as it provided a glimpse into why the Vikings used the No. 24 pick on Jackson and quickly penciled him in as a starter on the offensive line.
Now he’s preparing to make his NFL debut in primetime on Monday night at Soldier Field when the Vikings take on the Chicago Bears.
The switch will soon be flipped.
“I can’t wait,” Jackson said. “It’s going to be a lot of fun. It’s a culmination of everything that has kind of happened to this point. Just looking forward to it and ready to execute my job.”
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