Although no one will ever confuse him for one of the truly elite, untouchable tier of running backs in the modern National Football League, Josh Jacobs made a deeply convincing case during the 2024 season that he was severely underrated going into the campaign. The Green Bay Packers ultimately felt entirely vindicated in their bold offseason decision to move on from long-time fan favorite Aaron Jones and bring in Jacobs to serve as their new offensive foundation and primary starter. This validation came not only because Jacobs’ raw production was remarkably solid in general, but also because his stocky, powerful frame allowed the coaching staff to successfully execute physical power running concepts that simply did not work as effectively with Jones in the backfield. Despite a frustrating stretch that saw him fail to find the end zone in his first four games of the year, Jacobs finished the 2024 campaign with a career-high 16 rushing touchdowns, a mark that tied him for the fifth-most among all players across the league.
As smoothly and successfully as the 2024 season went for Jacobs individually, it proved to be a somewhat less encouraging year for Green Bay’s offense as a collective unit. Key foundational pieces, including quarterback Jordan Love and wide receiver Christian Watson among others, hit noticeable developmental plateaus or dealt with untimely setbacks throughout the schedule. Consequently, Jacobs quickly evolved into the absolute centerpiece of an otherwise inconsistent and uneven offensive attack, topping 20 total touches in a game eight different times. In doing so, he became the very first true workhorse running back of head coach Matt LaFleur’s entire tenure in Green Bay. While LaFleur may attempt to distribute a portion of those touches to the team’s backups moving forward, the supporting cast behind Jacobs does not currently form a strong enough group to pose any serious threat to his dominant share of the workload.
Reflecting on the broader arc of his professional career, life was never made especially easy for Jacobs during his initial five years in the Oakland and Las Vegas organization. Throughout that tenure, he was routinely subjected to substandard offensive line blocking and erratic quarterback play at almost every critical juncture, yet he still managed to rush for more than 800 yards in every single season. His eventual arrival in Green Bay must have felt remarkably like a vacation by comparison, geographical location aside. The high-powered Jordan Love and Matt LaFleur offense had established itself as one of the premier units in the entire NFL by the conclusion of the 2023 season, and the Packers returned four out of five regular starters along their offensive line to protect that progress.
It is naturally daunting to step in and attempt to replace a beloved, iconic player like Aaron Jones, but Jacobs arrived younger, bigger, and physically stronger, which naturally opened the door for greater success running tough yards directly between the tackles. A lucrative four-year, $48 million contract heavily signaled that Jacobs was expected to stay exceptionally busy for the Packers, even after the front office re-signed bruising backup AJ Dillon and utilized a valuable third-round draft selection on MarShawn Lloyd. Dillon’s yards-per-carry average had steadily dropped with each passing season in the league, bottoming out at an inefficient 3.4 yards per attempt the year prior, while Lloyd arrived as a notably talented runner who nevertheless struggled mightily with a recurring fumbling issue throughout his collegiate career. While Jacobs would understandably be hard-pressed to chase down another individual league rushing title on the scale of his brilliant 2022 campaign—where he racked up 1,653 yards and 12 touchdowns—he positioned himself comfortably to enjoy the second- or third-best statistical season of his career to date within Green Bay’s system.
That memorable 2022 season in Las Vegas had previously established Jacobs as one of the most pleasant and impactful surprises of the fantasy and real-world football landscapes alike. He successfully made the massive developmental leap from being merely a good running back to an elite, game-dominating workhorse in a manner that modern NFL teams rarely ask of their ball-carriers. During that standout year, he averaged an impressive 4.9 yards across an exhaustive 340 carries to capture the league’s rushing crown with 1,653 yards, while remarkably avoiding missing a single game due to injury for the first time in his four-year professional career, even while absorbing that intensely heavy burden.
That durability, however, came with hidden physical costs, as Jacobs did not stay entirely healthy throughout the grueling schedule. Rather, he simply refused to miss games, instead choosing to play through lingering foot, calf, quadriceps, and hip injuries at various different points in 2022. While it remains deeply impressive that Jacobs can perform at an exceptionally high level while playing at less than 100 percent health, the team and coaching staff would obviously prefer if he could evade those physical ailments altogether. Given his undeniably bruising, punishing style of running and a career average hovering around 20.5 touches per game, it remains entirely possible that minor and major injuries will simply always be an inherent part of the package. Even so, at just 25 years old during that stretch, Jacobs remained one of the exceptionally rare running backs possessing the legitimate upside to clear 300-plus carries and haul in over 50 receptions in a single year.
The shifting cast of characters around him in Las Vegas during those subsequent years heavily hinted at an offense that would continue to rely heavily on short passing routes and steady Jacobs rushing attempts. The Raiders front office swapped out veteran quarterback Derek Carr for Jimmy Garoppolo, replaced wide receiver Mack Hollins with Jakobi Meyers, and transitioned from tight end Darren Waller to a combination of Austin Hooper and Michael Mayer, changes that hardly signaled an immediate infusion of explosive, downfield big-play ability.
Earlier in his professional timeline, Jacobs had finished a prior campaign on a remarkably high note over the final month of the regular season, though he did not register his first 100-yard rushing performance until Week 16 and ultimately fell just shy of the coveted 1,000-yard rushing mark for the first time in his career. His rather mediocre average of 2.0 yards per carry after contact was roughly comparable to his production the year before, but it represented a massive, concerning decline from the impressive 2.8 yards after contact he managed as an explosive rookie. Furthermore, his workload dipped as he averaged only 14.5 carries per game after comfortably topping 18 carries per contest in each of his first two professional seasons.
Jacobs also began to show minor cracks in his reliability within the passing game during that era, dropping five passes, which matched the exact total of drops he had accumulated over his entire first two years combined. The addition of head coach Josh McDaniels brought changes designed to help spark the entire Las Vegas offense, with wide receiver Davante Adams stepping into a role of paramount importance. That dynamic threatened to leave Jacobs sliding into a somewhat more complementary role rather than serving as the absolute focal point of the offense as he had under former coach Jon Gruden. Still, that tactical shift could easily work out favorably from an overall efficiency and production standpoint if the Raiders found themselves frequently operating inside the opponent’s red zone, and provided that their young fourth-year running back did not lose an excessive amount of valuable work to backfield peers like Kenyan Drake or fourth-round draft pick Zamir White.
The broad contours of Jacobs’ second season in the NFL closely mirrored his rookie campaign, bringing both encouraging highlights and frustrating limitations. The young back consistently ran with admirable power and exceptional balance, finishing among the upper tier of running backs in broken tackles, but his innate tendency to physically punish defenders by running directly through contact rather than gracefully eluding them in open space contributed heavily to a persistent series of nagging injuries. These issues periodically sapped his burst and overall production without ever formally forcing him onto the inactive list for games.
While he developed into an adequate pass-catcher capable of anchoring a complete three-down role when called upon, room for continued development remained apparent in that specific facet of his game, especially since Jon Gruden frequently preferred to rest his lead runner during obvious passing situations. An ongoing lack of true breakaway speed also surfaced as a notable talking point, as Jacobs failed to produce a single individual rushing attempt of at least 40 yards over that stretch. Compounding matters, the Raiders’ offensive line was undergoing a comprehensive, disruptive rebuilding process, forcing Jacobs to labor extensively for significantly fewer yards.
The front office seemingly recognized several of these evolving roster issues during the offseason, though their chosen solutions did little to immediately bolster Jacobs’ projection. The arrival of veteran Kenyan Drake on a substantial two-year, $11 million contract created an intriguing backfield puzzle. Both players were historically accustomed to handling significant volumes of high-value touches inside the red zone—with Jacobs having led the entire National Football League in red-zone carries in 2020 while Drake finished fourth—and there simply was not enough available offensive volume for both players to fully thrive, even if the coaching staff occasionally deployed dual-halfback formations. While the two athletes possessed genuinely complementary skill sets that promised to elevate the baseline efficiency of the broader offense, Jacobs faced a difficult path toward replicating his previous volume of over 300 touches.
When Jacobs originally entered the professional ranks, he did so as an immensely talented but relatively unproven commodity who had never truly been forced to carry the absolute heaviest offensive load during his collegiate days at the University of Alabama. The Raiders organization wasted virtually no time allowing him to prove he could handle the responsibilities of a primary feature back, and the rookie immediately delivered by averaging 20.2 touches across 13 games, though a lingering shoulder injury unfortunately cost him three crucial weeks of action in December.
Frequently playing at noticeably less than 100 percent physical health, Jacobs nevertheless put on a display of impressive capability, plowing through congested line-of-scrimmage traffic with notable power and body control. He finished his debut campaign ranked highly in broken tackle rate, averaging one broken tackle for every 9.3 rushing attempts. Despite that broadly successful introduction to professional football, Jacobs still carried areas of his game left to prove. The fact that he visibly wore down as the long season wore on was not entirely encouraging for his long-term durability, and he did not yet establish himself as a consistent, game-breaking weapon in the passing game, though the team’s aerial attack as a whole was largely a disappointment outside of star tight end Darren Waller.
The Raiders organization initially looked to various rookie additions to spark broader offensive improvements, bringing in first-round speedster Henry Ruggs and third-round wideout Bryan Edwards alongside veteran Tyrell Williams to inject a much-needed downfield vertical dimension into the scheme. Ruggs, in particular, possessed the game-changing deep speed capable of forcing opposing safeties to back off and prevent them from constantly creeping aggressively toward the line of scrimmage to shut down the run game. While Jacobs’ undisputed role as the leader of the ground game remained entirely secure from day one, his immediate ceiling for expansive receiving growth appeared somewhat limited by the team’s broader offensive design.
As the very first running back selected off the board in the 2019 NFL Draft, Jacobs landed straight into a prime starting opportunity when the Oakland franchise called his name with the 24th overall pick in the first round. Although he did not log a heavy collegiate workload operating within a crowded Alabama backfield, he maximized every single opportunity that came his way, displaying a diverse, versatile skill set and running with admirable power and clear purpose. Standing at roughly 5-foot-10 and weighing 220 pounds, Jacobs naturally ran with a low, compact center of gravity, making him ideally suited to absorb plenty of high-leverage short-yardage and goal-line carries regardless of whatever other responsibilities were assigned to him in the offensive game plan.
His natural balance and on-field vision also stood out as major assets. Consequently, even though scouts legitimately questioned his raw elusiveness and ability to pull away from athletic defenders in the open field, Jacobs routinely manufactured extra yards entirely on his own after absorbing initial contact. He also flashed sufficient capability as a pass-catcher to earn the right to stay on the field during passing downs, even if he was never projected to become a dynamic, game-breaking threat through the air, with complementary options like Jalen Richard also factoring into that specific role.
Earlier roster maneuvers had seen the club ink Isaiah Crowell in free agency, though the former Cleveland and New York running back quickly eliminated himself from the equation by suffering a devastating torn Achilles tendon during voluntary workouts in April, prompting the front office to pivot quickly to veteran Doug Martin. With franchise icon Marshawn Lynch having officially retired and the Raiders otherwise focusing heavily on reshaping and upgrading their passing attack with high-profile acquisitions like Antonio Brown and Tyrell Williams, the runway was ultimately cleared for a young Josh Jacobs to step forward immediately and spearhead the franchise’s ground game into a new era.
