Orlando Pride
2025 Orlando Pride Season In Review: Simone Jackson
The rookie midfielder showed flashes of her potential in her debut season with the Pride.
After a stellar career at USC, where she made an all-conference team four times and had 35 goal contributions in 75 games, Simone Jackson joined the Pride as a non-roster invitee during the 2025 preseason. She was with the team during the preseason but did not make the club, but on May 29 she officially joined the Pride when she signed a contract with the club through the 2028 season.
Let’s take a look back at the rookie’s debut season with the Pride.
Statistical Breakdown
Jackson joined the club 10 games into the regular season, so she was not on the roster and therefore did not feature in the season-opening NWSL Challenge Cup match against Washington.
In NWSL regular-season play, Jackson appeared in eight of Orlando’s 26 matches, starting one and playing a total of 207 minutes. She did not score a goal but contributed one assist, and her one goal contribution earned the Pride one point as that goal tied the home game against Utah on Aug. 3. She attempted four shots and put two on target. Jackson completed only 58% of her passes, particularly struggling on medium (55% completion rate vs. the full team’s 86% average completion rate) and long passes (30% completion rate vs. the full team’s 56% average). Despite some of those passing struggles, she completed four key passes and had one successful cross — low numbers overall but both ranked sixth on the team when looked at on a per-90-minutes-played basis. On the defensive side, she compiled two tackles, two interceptions, and one clearance. She committed four fouls and suffered 11, and she was not booked.
The rookie played more minutes in the Concacaf W Champions Cup than she did during NWSL play, starting three of the Pride’s four games and logging 313 minutes. She scored her only goal of the season in the 3-0 opening win against Alajuelense on Sept. 2, ripping a left-footed shot from a tight angle that was too hard for the goalkeeper to handle. She then went from offense to defense in the next game, starting at left back and going the full 90 minutes in the Pride’s 5-0 win over Chorrillo on Sept. 16. She finished out the final two games back on the attacking side of the lineup, but she showed her versatility in the four Cup games, joining Kerry Abello and Carson Pickett as left-sided players who played both on the attack and defense this season. Jackson contributed her one goal on 10 shot attempts, of which she put six on target. She completed 69% of her passes, a much better percentage than during NWSL play. On defense, she added three tackles. She committed two fouls and suffered four, and she was not booked.
Jackson was an unused substitute during both of the Pride’s playoff games, so she did not play any minutes during the NWSL playoffs.
Best Game
There were two main candidates for Jackson’s top performance, and while she scored her first career goal (and only goal of the season) during the Pride’s Concacaf W Champions Cup win over Alajuelense, I thought her performance after coming off the bench against Utah was a better overall performance and against a better team. Jackson entered the game after the halftime break with the Pride trailing 1-0, and she changed the game completely, leading the team with three key passes, including the pass that put the Pride on the scoreboard.
That pass resulted in Jackson’s one assist for the season, but the whole play showed what she was capable of, as she received a pass from Cori Dyke and then turned on a burst of speed to leave her defender in her wake before playing a perfectly weighted and located cross right onto the foot of Prisca Chilufya for the game-tying goal.
The Pride clearly realized that Jackson was on her game, because despite only playing 45 minutes, she led the team with seven progressive receptions, as the team was targeting her with long passes. She repaid her teammates’ faith in her with that assist, and her speed and aggression changed the game for the Pride in the second half after a poor first half in which Utah, the bottom team in the table, outshot the Pride and had a 1-0 lead on the road.
2025 Final Grade
The Mane Land staff gave Jackson a composite grade of 5.5 out of 10 for her first season in purple. She showed potential, especially during her longer stints during Concacaf W Champions Cup games, but she did not play well enough or consistently enough to earn NWSL minutes during the critical final games of the season, appearing in only two NWSL games for a total of 19 minutes after August.
2026 Outlook
With a contract that goes all the way through 2028, Jackson will be back with the Pride next season and will be part of a contingent of players who are competing for minutes on the attacking wings. With the departures of Chilufya and Ally Watt and the timeline uncertainty for Barbra Banda’s return, there is a dearth of speed on the Pride’s roster at the moment. While Jackson is not as fast as any of those players, she still has more pace than most of the Pride’s other remaining attacking players.
Pickett is out of contract at the time of this writing, and if she does not return, her spot as a left-sided rotational player will be up for grabs. Jackson is a top candidate on the roster to replace her. She will need to improve her passing accuracy, decision-making in the final third, and her ability to get shots off more quickly to earn those minutes, and with a full season under her belt and some off-season training, we will see if she takes a leap forward in her second season in the league, as many rookies do.
I expect Jackson to play more NWSL minutes in 2026 than 2025 (not going too far out on a limb there), but most likely as a depth player who comes in off the bench and not a starter.