RB Josh Jacobs Expected To Report To Raiders By Week 1

The Josh Jacobs situation has gone quiet since he began his training camp holdout. A return to the Raiders could be coming soon for the franchise-tagged running back, however.

[RELATED: Chiefs, Broncos Eyeing Jacobs?]

Vincent Bonsignore of the Las Vegas Review-Journal reports that Jacobs is expected to report to the team ahead of their regular season opener. Three weeks remain until Week 1, and Bonsignore adds it remains unclear at this point when exactly Jacobs could be back in the fold. He has yet to sign his $10.1MM tag, but failing to take part in regular season action would result in $561K in weekly missed game checks.

Few firm details have emerged regarding how close the Raiders came to working out a multi-year deal with last year’s rushing champion. An offer worth roughly $12MM per year was reportedly made and rejected, leaving Jacobs in the same situation as the other tagged running backs (Tony Pollard and Saquon Barkley) with respect to having an uncertain long-term future.

Pollard signed his tag, however, and Barkley avoided a holdout with a revised one-year deal involving $900K in incentives. Vegas is believed to be open to talks on a similar compromise, but without Jacobs present it is unlikely much dialogue has taken place in that regard. Assuming he does return with some time remaining before Week 1, head coach Josh McDaniels would welcome the opportunity for him to receive at least some training camp reps.

“I think that it’s important for every player,” McDaniels said. “This is the National Football League, so it’s not easy to go out there and just play games and do it at the speed and level that you want to do it at, unless you’ve really kind of had enough opportunity to get yourself ready to do that.”

After leading the league in scrimmage yards in 2022 and operating as the focal point of the Raiders’ offense, Jacobs should be expected to fairly comfortably pick up where he left off if and when he does return. If that does not turn out to be the case, though, a largely inexperienced contingent of depth backs – led by 2022 fourth-rounder Zamir White – would be leaned on in the Raiders’ regular season opener against the Broncos. For now, signs could be pointing to such a scenario not being necessary.

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