Lo-Fi’s Lowdown: Austin Jackson’s Mystery or Misery Solved?
Last week in the 49ers review on YouTube, we mentioned: Why has Austin Jackson not received more help with his struggles against some top-tier pass rushers? Well, a new PFF metric they began tracking last year might be our clue.
Island Percentage Win Rate, or ISL WIN%: Like it suggests, when a tackle is isolated one on one, what percentage of those snaps does the tackle win?
Austin Jackson logged only 175 pass-blocking snaps last year. On 54.9% of those snaps, he was considered isolated, where there was no help from a chipping back, tight end or other lineman.
What was Austin Jackson’s 2025 ISL WIN%? Fifth best in the NFL at 93.8%. Well, I could see why possibly the current brass has left him on an island as often as they have.
I don’t have the current 2026 isolated win rate, but we all have seen him getting beaten every which way so far this season. Austin Jackson in 2026 has started out with a PFF overall grade of 36.0, ranking him 65th among 66 qualified NFL tackles. Pass blocking, he currently ranks dead last with a 33.1 grade and a 54.2 run-blocking grade.
We are only 114 snaps into Austin Jackson’s season, and sounding the alarm for change might be near, but if we’re willing to let everyone have a pass on a bad start to the season, maybe we should do the same for Austin. He was the guy we were not so worried about giving us at least average play at the start, but here we are. There could be other factors, like play calling, that have not helped anyone’s growth. That conversation happens if we have another bad showing this week against Kansas City.
Austin Jackson, you’re officially on Lo-Fi’s watch list.
