About a month ago I questioned whether Josh Jacobs would live up to the offseason workhorse hype. I find it’s only fitting to write this new piece following Josh Jacobs’ Week 1 fantasy football performance, where the Raiders got him involved in the passing game and he looked like the late-first, early-second round workhorse we all dreamed of entering this season.
Looking at the Week 1 RB stable in Las Vegas, Jacobs played 79 percent of the team’s snaps, compared to Devontae Booker’s 13 percent, and Jalen Richard’s 10 percent. Jacobs grossly out-carried the competition with 25 carries, opposed to Booker’s four and Richard’s zero. Most importantly, Jacobs dominated the target share with six, to Booker’s three targets, and Richard’s one. All of those touches resulted in 139 total yards and three scores for the Raiders’ bell-cow back.
Now, the Raiders were in a shootout with the Panthers, leading to a positive game script that allowed Jacobs to be a factor in the passing game. We love that he cashed in on the goal line three times, but his passing game utilization is what really gets us going.
According to PFF data, Jacobs ran a career-high number of routes in Week 1 (18), and more than Joe Mixon (17), Todd Gurley (16), and Dalvin Cook (14).
Not only was he targeted six times, but he was Derek Carr’s second-highest targeted player on the team, behind Darren Waller’s eight targets. In a game where Carr threw 30 passes, only Waller, Jacobs, and Henry Ruggs saw more than five targets.
If Carr has that much trust in Jacobs, and if Gruden sticks to his word that he wants to showcase Jacobs’ receiving skills in 2020, we could be looking at a locked-in RB1 season from the second-year back. He’ll have a huge test in Week 2 against a Saints’ defense that held Tompa Bay in check, but the game script could favor Jacobs in the passing game again.
If Jacobs can prove he can succeed in any scenario, then fantasy owners will be thrilled to have an RB1 at his preseason ADP.
