For Atlanta native Deon Jackson, joining Matt Ryan's latest comeback was a dream

INDIANAPOLIS - Five years ago, Deon Jackson was a senior in his cap and gown at a high school graduation when Matt Ryan took the podium. Ryan was the league's reigning MVP, a four-time Pro Bowler and one of the city of Atlanta's most decorated athletes, but he was trying to rebound from his toughest defeat -- a 28-3 blown lead against the Patriots in the Super Bowl.

The message he gave was on resiliency.

Five years later, the two were teammates on the Colts in a primetime game, and it was Jackson's time to dive into the fire. Jonathan Taylor was out with an ankle injury. Nyheim Hines started the game, but three plays in took a hit that snapped his head onto the turf and made it hard to walk.

Suddenly, Jackson could hear the words Taylor and Hines tell him all the time:

"'You're one or two plays away. You have to be ready.'"

Readiness can feel like a cliché to a second-year undrafted running back stuck behind one of the best 1-2 backfield punches in football. Jackson came in with two carries on the season for -3 yards. His game day role has always been about special teams.

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But last Thursday, Jackson had to be ready for the bizarre. A slugfest would ensue against the Broncos, with two teams with offenses stuck in the mud trying to push through a Thursday game on a short week by scratching and clawing for field goals.

With less than 3 minutes to go and the Broncos leading 9-6 and driving, it looked like a listless night without Taylor and Hines was about to end. Then Russell Wilson threw an inexplicable interception to Stephon Gilmore in the end zone, and Ryan gave Jackson and the offense a look that simply said, "Let's go."

"He's poised," Jackson said. "He never panicked. He's a general."

Jackson has had reverence for Ryan since those days as a kid in Atlanta. He was 9 years old running in backyards when Ryan showed up as a first-round rookie to replace Michael Vick, which meant pulling the Falcons and the city out of a dogfighting scandal.

Jackson wasn't a big Falcons fan, but he loved following the best players in the league, and Ryan was the point guard for some like Julio Jones, Roddy White and Tony Gonzalez. As Jackson grew into a star at Pace Academy, a private school on Atlanta's north side where as a junior he rushed for 1,562 yards and 10 touchdowns to win the state championship, he went to school with the children of Falcons owner Arthur Blank.

The Falcons rose as Jackson did, and by his senior season, Ryan had won the MVP and took the Falcons to the Super Bowl, earning a day off school for the students of Pace Academy.

That Super Bowl was a dream for the city of Atlanta for three quarters, when they built up a 28-3 lead on the Patriots. Then Tom Brady led an all-time comeback to win the game in overtime, burning in Ryan his deepest football scar.

Five years later, after Ryan finished a 14-year run with the Falcons and Jackson flashed at Duke before going undrafted and signing with the Colts, the two took the field together for a comeback drive.

It came in a game where nothing was working.

The short week made it impossible to build chemistry with an offensive line introducing three new starters. The Colts usually do full-speed run game work on Wednesdays, where backs get a feel for combination blocks. They only did walkthroughs last week, so Jackson's first full-speed work with the first team came Thursday in Denver.

In the first quarter, he reached out one hand to catch his first pass from Ryan on a shallow cross, ran for a first down and then hit an internal "B" button to flip inside off a Broncos defender's hip and dart for eight more yards.

On the sideline, Taylor greeted him with his signature smile and yelled, "Ah, you hit 'em with the spin move!"

"He's always hyping me up," Jackson said.

Coming out of Duke, Jackson profiled athletically as a back with average size, elite speed and questionable change of direction. For more than a year, he's followed Taylor and Hines in drill lines and spied the tightness of their moves.

"One of the things about the spin moves is you've got to have great ball security because the ball comes away from the body," running backs coach Scottie Montgomery said. "We critique the hell out of the spin move. We punch his chin on the spin move. His feet were spectacular. I thought he was tight end vertical after the spin move, which allowed him to gain ground."

By the final drive of the fourth quarter, Jackson was playing free, like a kid who might not get another chance. From the edge of field goal range, he took a shotgun handoff from Ryan and shifted off a Braden Smith block. He used his 4.42-second 40-yard dash speed to sprint 17 yards through open grass.

He and Ryan rushed back into the backfield in shotgun again. With the clock ticking down, Ryan spotted the Broncos in prevent defense, so he told Jackson to run the quickest route to the vacated middle of the field. It was something Jackson had never tried, but he did it full-speed, and then the ball was there and the instincts took over as he side-stepped another defender to gain nine yards to the Denver 8.

That set up a Chase McLaughlin field goal to force overtime.

The Colts would go on to win 12-9 on another McLaughlin field goal.

It will go down as one of the lowest-scoring games of this NFL season, but it is the first highlight of Jackson's pro career. He finished with 91 yards, including an efficient 4-for-4 receiving day and 4.8 yards per carry.

In the week since, Jackson's phone has been abuzz with texts from his Atlanta friends. Many of them have two connections to the Colts now in Jackson and in Ryan.

The win was the 36th fourth-quarter comeback of Ryan's career, tying him with Drew Brees for fourth in NFL history.

The final completion went to a kid who sat through his graduation speech about resiliency.

"You never know what can happen," Jackson said. "That was just a living testament to what they've been preaching me."

Contact Colts insider Nate Atkins at natkins@indystar.com. Follow him on Twitter @NateAtkins_.

This article originally appeared on Indianapolis Star: Colts' Deon Jackson's breakout game was five years in the making