GREEN BAY, Wis. (AP) — After following up his 2022 All-Pro season with a year to forget, Josh Jacobs is ready to bounce back with a new team.
The Green Bay Packers’ new running back believes he should benefit from participating in a full training camp, something he didn’t have last year with the Las Vegas Raiders.
Jacobs rushed for an NFL-leading 1,653 yards in 2022 and then held out before agreeing to a one-year contract worth up to $12 million about two weeks prior to the Raiders’ 2023 season opener. Jacobs played 13 games last year and rushed for 805 yards — less than half his 2022 total — while gaining just 3.5 yards per carry.
The Packers are hoping Jacobs’ 2023 season was a fluke. They signed him to a four-year, $48 million contract while allowing Aaron Jones to leave for the Minnesota Vikings via free agency.
Jacobs says he feels rejuvenated by the move to Green Bay.
“It’s definitely been exactly what everybody’s told me, as far as the community, how much they support, how nice people are and things like that,” Jacobs said. “And the locker room, how good the team is and how the young guys come in and work. That’s the thing that everybody was telling me the whole time during the offseason, how it was going to be. It’s been that way so far.”
He faces a challenge taking over for Jones, who was enormously popular in Green Bay.
Jones rushed for just 656 yards during an injury-filled 2023 season but ran for more than 100 yards in each of Green Bay’s last five games, including the postseason, while helping the Packers advance to the NFC divisional playoffs. Jacobs has rushed for more than 100 yards in just two his past 18 games.
Jacobs has the bigger upside than Jones. The 26-year-old Jacobs also is younger than Jones, who turns 30 on Dec. 2.
But the Packers can’t afford to have Jacobs deliver a repeat of his 2023 season. They’re confident that won’t happen.
“I just get so excited that he can do it all,” Packers coach Matt LaFleur said Wednesday. “He can be a weapon in the passing game, not only as a pass blocker, pass protector, but also out of the backfield catching the ball.”
LaFleur called Jacobs a punishing runner while quarterback Jordan Love noted that his new teammate is difficult to tackle.
“When I hand the ball off to him, just watching the way he’s able to get through the holes, find those holes, and his cutting ability in and out of the holes is crazy,” Love said. “It’s fun to watch.”
The cause for concern with Jacobs is that his decline actually started late in that outstanding 2022 season. After gaining 5.4 yards per carry while rushing for 1,303 yards in the first 12 games of 2022, he averaged 3.6 yards per rush over his final five games. The slide continued once he returned from his holdout last year.
Jacobs did run for 116 yards against the New York Jets and 110 yards against Kansas City last November before a quadriceps injury sidelined him for the Raiders’ final four games last season.
He joins a Green Bay offense that figures to have more firepower than the one he left behind in Las Vegas. Jacobs will be the lead back in a group that also includes AJ Dillon and rookie third-round pick MarShawn Lloyd.
“I think a lot of people are sleeping on the backfield that we have,” Jacobs said. “I think that we have very high upside to the group in general.”
NOTES: WR Christian Watson was shaken up on the last play of Wednesday’s practice while trying to catch a pass that S Evan Williams intercepted. Watson stayed down for a few minutes but walked off without a notable limp and said afterward he’d just bruised his knee. “I don’t know if it was his knee or his cleat, but something just kind of hit me in the knee,” Watson said. “I think it hurt a lot worse in the moment. … I’m just thankful. I was praying it wasn’t too serious, and it wasn’t.” … LaFleur said OL Jordan Morgan has a shoulder issue that will sideline him for about a week. The rookie first-round pick has been lining up as the first-team right guard. … The Packers signed K Alex Hale, DL Brevin Allen and DL Zach Morton and waived/injured CB Don Callis and WR Rory Starkey.
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