Raiders ‘going to explore pretty hard’ re-signing Josh Jacobs
Las Vegas Raiders general manager Dave Ziegler decided not to exercise the NFL’s team option for a fifth season on Josh Jacobs’ contract in the 2022 offseason. That put the former Alabama running back on course to become an unrestricted free agent after he led the NFL in rushing in the 2022 season.
So in the 2023 offseason, Ziegler used the Raiders’ franchise tag on Jacobs to keep him from reaching free agency.
That turned out to be a disaster.
New Las Vegas general manager Tom Telesco wants to keep Jacobs out of free agency, too, this offseason. But it’s going to be a different process.
“As a GM, you never want to take anything off the table,” Telesco said during a press conference at the NFL Scouting Combine on Tuesday, “but I don’t anticipate using that tag this year.”
Instead, Telesco indicated the Raiders would try to get a contract extension worked out with Jacobs, who will become an unrestricted free agent at 3 p.m. CDT March 13 without one.
“He’s a high-level player,” Telesco said, “and I do want to establish a philosophy with the Raiders that we do like to sign our own. Doesn’t bother me that I didn’t draft him. He’s a Raider, and he was drafted by a Raider, and he’s a high-level player, so we’re going to explore pretty hard to see if we can bring him back here and kind of go from there.
“But as far as a player – running game, pass game, pass protection – he can really help you win games.”
In the 2022 season, Jacobs led the NFL in rushing yards with 1,653 and yards from scrimmage with 2,053.
When Las Vegas used its franchise tag to prevent the rushing champion from becoming a free agent, it guaranteed Jacobs a $10.091 million payday for the 2023 season and earned an extension until July 17 to work out a multi-year deal with the running back.
But the team failed to do so, and Jacobs never signed the franchise-tag tender. Once the deadline passed, NFL rules prohibited the Raiders from offering Jacobs anything but a one-year contract.
In the end, Jacobs signed a contract that had $10.091 million in guaranteed money – the value of the franchise tag. But the contract also paid Jacobs $100,000 for every game he was on Las Vegas’ game-day roster and had performance incentives.
Jacobs stayed away from the team until he signed about two weeks before the Raiders’ season-opening game.
Despite the late entry into Las Vegas’ preparations for the 2023 season, Jacobs was in the starting lineup for the opening game on Sept. 10. But his output dropped to 805 rushing yards and 1,101 yards from scrimmage as he missed the final four games of the season with a quadriceps injury.
The non-exclusive franchise tag for running backs this offseason is worth $11.951. But that would not be the amount the Raiders would have to guarantee Jacobs for the 2024 season if they used it again.
Las Vegas paid Jacobs $11.791 million during the 2023 season, and NFL rules require him to receive a minimum pay increase of 20 percent if franchise-tagged. That would boost the value of the tag in Jacobs’ case to $14.149 million, which would make him the NFL’s highest-paid running back in the 2024 season.
