Packers running back Josh Jacobs enjoyed one of the best years of his career in 2024 after making the move from Las Vegas to Green Bay, before coming back down to earth somewhat last season.
It was a frustrating year for Jacobs, who dealt with a painful and awkward knee contusion injury in the second half of the season. He suffered the injury against the Giants in Week 11, missed only one game versus the Vikings the following week, then played through it for the rest of the year.
It was a testament to Jacobs’ toughness that he kept gutting through, and he did have some excellent performances against the Bears at Lambeau Field and on the road in Denver late in the year.
He was clearly not himself during that stretch though, and overall it was a challenging, and less productive year for Jacobs, as indicated by his rankings among eligible running backs in 2025, compared to 2024. He fared worse in pretty much every metric as a runner and pass catcher.
Jacobs’ yards per attempt dropped from 4.4 to 3.9, his yards after contact per attempt fell from 3.49 to 3.0, his breakaway rate went from 22.2% to 20.9%, his PFF elusiveness score plummeted from 96.5 to 57.9, and he forced fewer missed tackles per attempt.
It is important to add the context that Green Bay’s offensive line labored in 2025, particularly in run blocking.
Road grading has never really been the calling card for O-lines in Green Bay, but 2025 was even more of a struggle. That was not helped by various injuries meaning the line was constantly shuffling around, making it difficult to build continuity and chemistry as a unit.
When trying to diagnose whether Jacobs’ more pedestrian production was due to him not having as much juice after a heavy workload in 2024 (319 carries), the injury, or the offensive line not giving him enough to work with, the answer is that it was likely a combination of all three.
Jacobs was not as effective even before his knee injury, which then will have undoubtedly made things harder, and the O-line certainly has to shoulder some of the blame as well. Head coach Matt LaFleur made reference to them needing to block better several times during the season.
The only area he improved as a runner was fumbles, with only two compared to five in 2024. Jacobs had 11 fumbles between 2022 and 2024, so it was encouraging to see him clean that issue up a bit last year.
LaFleur and the Packers coaching staff unlocked Jacobs as a pass catcher in his first year with the team, which is an area he was underutilized by the Raiders earlier in his career. Just like his rushing though, Jacobs’ statistics were worse across the board in 2025 in the receiving game.
Spinning forward to 2026, there is still some question over Jacobs’ status on the team, due to his legal situation which remains unresolved as training camp gets under way.
Assuming he will be on the roster, the Packers will be hoping Jacobs gets back to the kind of form he showed in 2024, and that the presence of MarShawn Lloyd – if he can stay healthy – could inject some of the kind of explosive runs into the offense, that Jacobs does not typically provide.
The running back room in Green Bay has no shortage of intrigue entering training camp.
This article originally appeared on Packers Wire: What was behind Josh Jacobs’ disappointing 2025 season for Packers?
Reporting by Mark Oldacres, Packers Wire / Packers Wire
USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect
By Mark Oldacres, Packers Wire | USA TODAY Network
