Las Vegas Raiders: Predicting a potential Josh Jacobs contract

Las Vegas Raiders: Predicting a potential Josh Jacobs contract

Long Term Contract

The second option would be inking him to a long-term contract that many think he rightfully deserves. Throughout Jacobs’s four-year career with the Raiders, he’s shown that he has the potential to be one of the best running backs in the NFL. In the 2022 season, we saw that potential come to fruition.

But where does he fall in regard to getting paid with the best of them? Will he garner the top contract at his position or settle himself amongst the top 5?

Currently, Christian McCaffrey sits atop the running back class for highest-paid players at $16 million AAV. Right behind him are Ezekiel Elliot and Alvin Kamara both at $15 million AAV. After that, you have the next five players all falling within a $12-$12.6 million annually and that’s where I believe Josh Jacobs will find himself, just above that threshold.

I feel like his contract will most resemble what Dalvin Cook was given. Cook received a 5-year, $63 million contract with $28 million guaranteed. That put him as the top-paid running back at the time with $12.6 million AAV. The construction of the contract is more why I believe Jacobs will be similar. Cook saw $16 million guaranteed at signing. Which means only $12 million was spread out through the next five years.

That helps keep the cap number down on average and the Vikings also had an out after year 3 that essentially turned the contract into 3-year $27 million if in fact he didn’t live up to it.

I don’t know if I see the Raiders giving him that long of a deal, especially with the way running backs are valued now a days. Getting the bag is usually what’s more important and a lot of players and agents might not hate the idea of a shorter contract in hopes of getting another at the end of it.