Breaking down Josh Jacobs development for the Oakland Raiders

Week 3 at Minnesota Vikings

The Minnesota Vikings are a good football team, there’s no doubt about that. Their defensive front is their strength and they proved that in the game against the Raiders a few weeks ago. For two weeks straight, the team had defensive struggles, and Derek Carr didn’t play good football, causing large leads early in the game by the opposing team and abandoning the run in favor of short passes and stretching the field.

Jacobs rushed only ten times, as the Oakland offense was stagnant against the strong defensive front of the Vikings. However, Jacobs still had 44 yards with an average of 4.4 on the day, better than four other running backs in that week.

He also only played in 25% of the snaps due to a hurt ankle from the previous week.

Even with his injury, Jacobs still ran hard, it’s just the Vikings are very good at gap control. Eric Kendricks is one of the best run stoppers in the NFL and was constantly staying patient and tacking the running back or hitting him at the line of scrimmage.

However, this doesn’t mean Jacobs had a bad game from a development standard. He used his one-cut style to get a few seven-to-eight yard runs,  but nothing flashy. The main reason they lost that game was the offensive line’s spotty play and the secondary struggles again.

Even with two straight losses, Jacobs showed good development.