- The Packers aren't letting run-game woes stop Jacobs from producing: Jacobs is averaging just 3.7 yards per carry through Week 7, but Green Bay has worked to keep him involved — and efficient — as a receiver.
- Jacobs is on pace for career-high efficiency marks as a receiver: He is averaging 1.64 yards per route run while generating 104.0 passer rating when targeted. And that's all without a drop.
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Estimated Reading Time: 8 minutes
As a free agent in the 2024 offseason, Josh Jacobs was viewed by many as the purest form of running back.
He was advertised without the bells and whistles of dynamic players at the position, like Christian McCaffrey and Aaron Jones (whom he was eventually signed to replace).
What Jacobs may not have possessed in the passing game, he could more than make up for in tried-and-true rushing. The Green Bay Packers were all in, and they signed him to a four-year, $48 million deal.
He immediately justified his large contract, finishing sixth in rushing yards and fourth in touchdowns in 2024. Jacobs also averaged the most yards after contact of any season in his career and earned a career-high 92.3 PFF overall grade.
Those numbers don’t look quite as attractive this season, though. In part due to the Packers’ less successful run blocking, Jacobs is averaging just 3.7 yards per carry through Week 7, not far from his career-low of 3.5 in his final campaign with the Raiders. While his touchdown production hasn’t gone anywhere, his yardage numbers have some Packers fans concerned about the long-term outlook of the team's rushing attack.
After all, Jacobs posted a legendary rushing season in 2022 for the Raiders when he led the league on the ground and was awarded the sole first-team All-Pro spot at running back. Just one season later, he posted career lows in rushing yards, yards per carry and PFF overall grade.
Now faced with a similar rushing slump, Jacobs isn't being left to the wolves. The Packers are doing everything they can to avoid the same fate the Raiders suffered in 2023. That means establishing Josh Jacobs in the receiving game.
The seeds for this transition were planted last season. While fans were enamored by Jacobs’ rampant success on the ground (and in the end zone), Jacobs was quietly posting career highs in receiving yards per route run (1.44), yards after the catch per reception (11.3) and passer rating when targeted (100.9).
Despite these improvements, Jacobs’ advancements in the passing game remained little more than a footnote. He finished 15th among running backs in receiving yards and caught just one touchdown pass from Jordan Love, but the signs were there for a reliable short target to emerge in Matt LaFleur’s offense. Arguably, the most notable of those signs was his zero drops on 36 catchable targets.
While effective offensive play-calling can put running backs in position to succeed through the air and after the catch, drops are not scheme-specific. They involve nobody beyond the player themself, which is a testament to Jacobs' efforts.
Now six games into year two in Green Bay, Jacobs still hasn’t dropped a pass in a Packers jersey. As for those career-high stats he posted in 2024, he is exceeding each of those figures once again.
| 2019-2023 | 2024 | 2025 | |
| Yards Per Route Run | 1.16 | 1.44 | 1.64 |
| YAC Per Reception | 7.8 | 11.3 | 12.0 |
| Passer Rating When Targeted | 84.9 | 100.9 | 104.0 |
| Drops | 20 | 0 | 0 |
The Packers' rushing offense is sputtering with long dry spells broken up by infrequent signs of life, but LaFleur is leaning on his passing attack to get Jacobs involved.
This team doesn’t possess a single player more dangerous with the ball in his hands than Jacobs, which is saying something, as rookie wide receiver Matthew Golden runs a 4.29-second 40-yard dash and tight end Tucker Kraft has posted all-time great after-the-catch numbers for the tight end position.
Perhaps most impressive is that the Packers aren’t merely relying on cheap screen passes to get Jacobs involved. Of his 16 receptions this year, just five have been screens. And he could arguably be perceived as a secondary read on two of those five plays.
Jacobs is averaging 13.4 yards per reception on screen passes, while his regular routes have been just as impressive to watch. Love found Jacobs over the middle on a crossing route from a slot alignment for 29 yards versus the Bengals in Week 6, which required an impressive jumping, twisting grab from the running back.
While this receiving success is welcomed, Jacobs has always been a pass-catching threat — only eight running backs have caught more passes than him since 2019. The difference in Green Bay is his efficiency.
Seasoned college football fans and draft enthusiasts will recall his impressive receiving chops during his time at Alabama. He amassed 30% of his scrimmage yards for the Crimson Tide through the air. That number dipped to just 19% for the Raiders but has partially rebounded since he joined the Packers. Jacob’s third-down ability in college was one of the primary reasons why he was viewed as a first-round prospect to begin with.
Succeeding offensively in the NFL can be boiled down to simply putting your best players in position to consistently thrive. The Raiders didn't adapt amid their 2023 run-game struggles, and their best offensive player was reduced to a product of the inept pieces surrounding him.
Matt LaFleur, the Packers coaching staff and Josh Jacobs himself have not allowed the same fate to rear its head once more in 2025. While Green Bay continues to search for consistency on the ground, the team's star running back has found new life through the air.
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