This week’s Thursday Night Football game will feature a suddenly resurgent Las Vegas Raiders team looking for their fourth straight win. An integral part of their late-season turnaround has been the MVP-caliber play of running back Josh Jacobs.
Putting up impressive numbers on an even more impressive number of touches, could the grind of the NFL season finally be catching up to Jacobs? A limited tag to start the week might suggest so.
Thursday Night Football has always been criticized because it forces players into short weeks. After a physical matchup against their AFC West foe, the Los Angeles Chargers, the Raiders now need to turn around and travel to L.A. to take on the Rams. Jacobs started the week with a limited tag in practice as he nurses both a quad and calf injury.
Neither of the injuries are new, as Jacobs has been questionable for the past two games before ultimately suiting up. However, it is a situation worth keeping an eye on as the week continues. As long as Jacobs remains limited and is not listed as a DNP, chances are he will be able to play on Thursday night.
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Should the limited tag cause any concerns for both Raiders fans and fantasy football managers who need to decide whether or not to start Jacobs?
Well, consider this. Jacobs had been limited for the past two weeks before ultimately playing. In those two games, the Raiders did not shy away from getting him the ball. He had 67 total touches, finishing with 453 total yards and three touchdowns.
Jacobs Has Been the Best Running Back in the NFL
It’s hard to find the superlatives necessary to describe what Jacobs is doing this season. What makes his performance so impressive isn’t just the numbers, but how unbelievably unexpected it all is.
Before the season started, Jacobs was a whopping +4000 to lead the league in rushing yards. He was behind names like Elijah Mitchell, Antonio Gibson, and Cam Akers.
Now, with 1,303 rushing yards on the year so far, his betting odds are -170 to lead the league. The only running back even close to him at this point is Nick Chubb, who has 1,119 — a difference of nearly 200 yards. If you look at scrimmage yards, Jacobs is also atop the list with 1,634, with the next closest player being Tyreek Hill at 1,409.
Those numbers are unreal. As Josh Dubow from the Associate Press pointed out on social media, the only other players in the history of the NFL to hit the kind of numbers Jacobs has through 12 games include Jim Brown, Walter Payton, and O.J. Simpson.
Can that continue against a Rams defense that has been decent against the run this year?
Probably; Los Angeles is allowing an average of 96.7 rushing yards per game, but that gets significantly worse at home, where they allow 106.6. The Rams are famous for their terrible home-field advantage, and Raiders fans love to travel. If Jacobs is healthy, I expect him to continue his impressive performance this year in L.A.
