Josh Jacobs' 2024 season was spectacular: Is there still room for improvement in 2025?

USA Today

2 days ago

Josh Jacobs' 2024 season was spectacular: Is there still room for improvement in 2025?
Packers running back Josh Jacobs enjoyed an excellent first season in Green Bay, rediscovering his form after a subdued final year in Las Vegas. He went over 1,400 yards for just the second time in his career and had a career high 17 total touchdowns.
By looking under the hood at some more advanced statistics, the level of play Jacobs hit in 2024 can be better understood in the context of his wider career, and the strengths and weaknesses of his overall game can be established.
Strengths
The core of Jacobs' success in his first year as a Packer was his ability to create yards after contact, both as a runner and a receiver.
Among qualified running backs, Jacobs ranked in the 86th percentile for yards after contact per attempt (YCO/A), the 84th percentile in PFF's elusiveness rating (ELU) and the 76th percentile for missed tackles forced per attempt (MTF/A).
His YCO/A was a career high 3.49 on the season, and his MTF/A of 0.25 was right behind his career best mark of 0.26.
Add in his ability in the passing game, and Jacobs ranked in the 86th percentile for missed tackles forced per touch, as well as leading the league in missed tackles forced after the catch. He did a fantastic job all season of getting more than was blocked for him and added real value.
Jacobs' impressive elusiveness in 2024 marked a significant improvement on his career average. His 99.4 rating was the highest since his rookie year and exceeded his average career rating of 70 considerably.
He has always had a knack of finding the end zone as a runner, arriving in Green Bay with 46 of them in five years, and this continued with the Packers. Jacobs ranked in the 88th percentile for touchdowns per attempt in 2024, scoring on a career high 5.02% of his carries.
The biggest area of improvement for Jacobs after joining the Packers was his contribution in the passing game. Utilizing him more as a receiver is something both he and the team mentioned wanting to do more of, and they backed it up.
He was one of the NFL's better receiving threats out of the backfield, ranking in the 86th percentile for yards per reception among qualified backs, the 95th for yards after the catch per reception and the 81st for yards per route run, with career high marks in all three categories.
Jacobs did not drop a pass in 2024, having dropped at least three in all of his previous seasons, and finally notched his first receiving touchdown as a pro.
Weaknesses
There are not many weaknesses to Jacobs' game, but of the few, some are fixable and some are not.
Stylistically, Jacobs is simply not an explosive runner or a home run hitter, and he never has been. He ran a 4.64 40-yard dash coming out of Alabama, and using the Relative Athletic Score (RAS) system, had just an "okay" overall speed score and a "poor" explosion score.
In 2024 he ranked in the 48th percentile for runs of 10+ yards, or "explosive runs" and the 38th for breakaway percentage (BAY%). These are not terrible marks by any means but highlight the fact he is not an electrifying runner.
His BAY% of 22.2% is right in line with his previous career average of 22.18%, and his explosive run rate of 10.66% was actually better than his career average of 9.79%.
Speaking to the Green Bay media last week, Jacobs expressed a desire to improve on his ability to break off bigger runs.
He said: 'I felt like I left a lot on the table', before explaining 'I had some one on ones, where if I made a person miss or broke a tackle, it was the difference between a 20-yard gain and a 60-yard gain. That's what makes people elite."
Whether this is something a runner of Jacob's type and athletic profile can truly improve on going into his seventh year remains to be seen, and seems relatively unlikely, but it is clearly a focus for Jacobs.
An aspect he can continue to work on though is protecting the football. Jacobs had a career high five fumbles in 2024, ranking in the 28th percentile in fumbles per attempt.
His PFF fumble grade has been just 61.4 over the last two years compared to 74.5 in his first four seasons.
Fumbles are similar to drops for receivers in that they are somewhat overrated as a means of analyzing a player's overall performance. Jacobs fumbled on just 1.57% of his carries in 2024. It is still an alarming trend though, and something he needs to hone-in on.
Pass protection is not a true weakness for Jacobs by any means; he was more than satisfactory in 2024, but it is an area he can still improve.
He ranked in the 44th percentile among qualified backs in pressure rate allowed on snaps with an opportunity to allow a pressure, and allowed more QB hits than any other back with four, although he was above average in pass block efficiency, ranking in the 55th percentile.
Again these are not disastrous statistics or anything to worry about, and both of them were worse than his prior career averages, which should give some encouragement that Jacobs can become a stronger blocker in 2025.
Overall, Jacobs was one of the best all-around backs in the league last year, and the Packers will want him to mostly just keep up what he has been doing, while continuing to work on taking care of the ball better and being consistent in pass protection.
His career numbers suggest he is not likely to become more explosive, but if he gets fewer carries in 2025, with second-year back MarShawn Lloyd working into the mix to give Jacobs a breather, he could become an even more efficient runner.
Jacobs worked around his blocking at times in 2024, with the group having a 60.25 run block grade on the year, which is just a tick above average.
In that sense, Jacobs has absolutely been worth the money so far for Green Bay. Getting more than what is blocked is technically what teams pay a back to do, and he has done exactly that.
According to PFF, of the backs with 4.4 yards per carry (YPC) or better, only two ran behind worse run blocking units than than Jacobs: Tank Bigsby in Jacksonville and De'Von Achane in Miami, and they only had 168 and 203 attempts respectively compared to 319 for Jacobs.
The Packers placed an emphasis on bolstering the offensive line this offseason, which is important given the type of runner Jacobs is.
Expecting Jacobs to make something out of nothing at the rate he did a year ago might be unrealistic, and he needs to be given something to work with, because the explosive runs are not going to be there to pad his numbers.
If Green Bay had settled for a mediocre run blocking unit, they could have set him up for a less effective year like his final one in Vegas, when a poor O-line sold him short all year.
A YPC of 4.4 is still good, ranking in the 60th percentile last year, but with more rest and better blocking, it could be even better in 2025, with Jacobs firmly in the prime of his career.