Legendary comparisons and the highest of expectations certainly do not dissuade Bears safety Eddie Jackson.
The All-Pro stood his ground on the Bears' belief that they're Super Bowl bound.
And Jackson added a goal that's sure to rile some of the staunchest old school Chicago fans, who will forever revere the 1985 Bears who won the franchise's only Super Bowl.
"Our goal right now is for the defense to be No. 1 across the board," Jackson told SiriusXM NFL Radio. "Shouts out to the '85 Bears, but we want to top everything they've done."
While Jackson is likely speaking of surpassing the dominance those Bears displayed en route to a one-loss season and a one-sided Super Bowl blowout of the overmatched Patriots, it would be near impossible to top the overall mystique of that storied squad. After all, the Super Bowl-shuffling Bears of 1985 had all-time greats such as Walter Payton, Mike Singletary and Dan Hampton along with all-time personalities Jim McMahon, William "The Refrigerator" Perry and Steve "Mongo" McMichael -- all corralled by head coach Mike Ditka and defensive coordinator Buddy Ryan.
To Jackson, who's entering only his third season, anything less than winning on the final Sunday of the season will fall short of hopes. Having already prognosticated a Super Bowl berth, Jackson doubled down on those lofty words.
"I'm really excited for this year, it's going to be something special," Jackson said. "Like I said, I stand behind what I said earlier in the season. We plan on taking this whole thing, we plan on winning the Super Bowl."
Somewhat surprisingly, Jackson and Co. seem to be looking far ahead even though last year's NFC Wild Card loss to the Philadelphia Eagles via the infamous "double doink" miss by kicker Cody Parkey still has them looking back.
"We have everything to prove. We went far last year, but we came up short," Jackson said. "That's the fuel to our fire right now. That keeps us going. Everyone seen and felt how great this team was last year. And now everyone sees that it's even better this year with the new faces added, the new coaches and just to see that everyone's on board. We had 100 percent OTA attendance."
All the predictions of prevailing in the biggest of big games and all the fuel that still burns from last season's letdown aside, perfect attendance is pretty darn impressive.
Jackson's talking big and is clearly confident, but showing up and putting in the work is the first step and clearly what the safety and the rest of the Bears are doing. When the season kicks off, the work they're doing now is likely to speak louder than anything they're predicting.
