One of Penn State football’s top defensive players of the 2020s could be out for the rest of the NFL regular season.
Late Thursday afternoon, it was announced that Jaquan Brisker, who is now in his third season with the Chicago Bears, had been placed on injured reserve.
Brisker has been a regular starter for the Bears since he started his NFL career in 2022.
The 6-foot-1, 200-pounder is part of a defensive back lineage at Penn State that also includes Ji’Ayir Brown (San Francisco 49ers), Joey Porter Jr (Pittsburgh Steelers) and Amani Oruwariye (Detroit Lions, Dallas Cowboys). There’s an argument to be made that Brisker had the best college career of the bunch, becoming an All-American at Penn State by the time he was done.
HIS SEASON BEFORE THE INJURY
Photo by Penn State Athletics: Jaquan Brisker from 2019. He wore No. 1 this season.
Brisker had only played in five of Chicago’s games this season before the concussion problems that eventually landed him on IR reared their ugly head. In those five games, he was productive. Brisker had 40 tackles, which was on pace to shatter his career high of 105 set last season. He also had a sack, a forced fumble, an interception and two passes defended. Pro Football Focus gave Brisker a respectable overall grade of 65.3, which was on par with last season’s grade (66.7)
HIS PENN STATE CAREER
By the end of his college football career, Brisker had blossomed into one of America’s best safeties under coach James Franklin, and earned second-team All-America honors as a result. Brisker played in 34 games over his time at Penn State, starting 21 of them. He finished his career with 152 tackles (seven for loss), five interceptions and 19 pass breakups. In his last college season, he had 63 tackles (three for loss), two interceptions and seven pass breakups. Brisker started his college career without much fanfare, playing two seasons at Lackawanna Community College. But he played well enough there to earn an offer from Penn State, where he progressively got better over his three seasons.
