CHARLOTTE— "I have to ask," began Nick Scott, leaning away from his own interview to interrupt the one going on with Mike Jackson one locker over, "Mike, before you answer that question, real quick, are you fast, bro?"

"Fast enough," quipped Jackson in response.

Scott cackled, recounting Jackson's interception during the third quarter of the Panthers' 30-0 Week 3 win over the Falcons.

"I thought it was nothing but green grass in front of him," Scott said. "Apparently not."

In hindsight, there was nothing but green grass in front of him. But Jackson had a few other plans.

Let's start at the beginning of the play.

There was 1:34 remaining in the third quarter of Sunday's game, and the Falcons were trailing 20-0. They were facing fourth-and-8 from the Panthers' 31-yard line. They had not (and would not) cross Carolina's 30-yard line all day, so this play, on the doorstep and with time running out to make a comeback, was crucial. Not only would a failure to convert result in a turnover on downs, but any chance of hacking into the lead, considering how stifling the Panthers' defense had been all day, hinged on this play.

Jackson was deep off the line, covering Ray-Ray McCloud. The Falcons' receiver slipped on the play and wasn't able to recover in time. Regardless, Jackson was ready. All day long, Atlanta had tested Jackson in a way he hadn't foreseen.

"They just kept hitting me on outs today, which is a tendency breaker for them," explained Jackson. "Normally they run digs, but, for some reason, based on last week, I gave up an out, but he didn't catch it, so that was kind of a thing."

Despite it being something different from what they'd shown on tape, Jackson felt he adjusted well, telling reporters, "They tried it like three or four times; they caught one, but a lot of them was like, the dude (was) open but timing was off, so I just saw my opp and took it."

Before the defense went on the field for that drive, Jackson turned to fellow corner Jaycee Horn and told him, "I'm going to get a pick, and I'm going to do the bird walk (Dirty Bird)."

"He did say that," yelled safety Lathan Ransom, confirming from the opposite side of Jackson's locker.

Jumping the route in front of the fallen McCloud, the Panthers' corner took off down the near sideline. To Nick Scott's point, he seemed to having but green grass. Around the opposite 30-yard line, Jackson jumped over Penix, who had fallen while in pursuit. Penix stuck a hand out and seemed to get his fingers around Jackson's ankle, but the veteran defensive back recovered, albeit slowed up a step.

From there, though, things presumably fell apart. He back-tracked to avoid the wall of Falcons' players that had come around, spun in a few circles, and finally went down out of bounds in a 54-yard return that will live on highlight reels and would greatly benefit from "Yakety Sax."

"In his defense, they were going pretty quick there at the end, and I don't know how many plays we got," argued linebacker Christian Rozeboom. "The legs probably weren't quite as fresh as— I don't know how far Chau had to run 11-(yards), so yeah, and that was great. Nothing away from that. That is amazing. But I think, I mean, he sets our offense up to score points and that's our job every time."

Turns out, the final seconds of the huge return were exactly how Jackson wanted them to go. He hit the Dirty Bird, per his prediction/promise to Horn, and then headed to the bench to catch his breath. The defense had been on the field for an 11-play drive, and Jackson had complete faith in his offense to take care of the scoring.

"I was exhausted," admitted Jackson to a peal of laughter. "If I would have scored, we'd had to go back out there. So it was already going up tempo, so like I'm cool with not scoring. Let the offense go score. We drink Gatorade."

The offense did, in fact, score on the turnover, using the short field to punch in a Rico Dowdle touchdown.

And Mike Jackson got his first interception of the season, and his Gatorade. A good day all-around.