Last Sunday against the Buccaneers was easily the worst rushing performance of Josh Jacobs’s young career. He carried the ball ten times for just 17 yards without picking up a single first down or touchdown. That’s 1.7 yards per carry. Not nearly what we’d come to expect from Jacobs last season when he was a candidate for Offensive Rookie of the Year.
It’s not what Jacobs expects from himself either. And he isn’t just moving on from it either.
“I wouldn’t say I put it behind me because I was embarrassed. It was pretty embarrassing for me,” Jacobs said. “Something that I just kind of went and looked at the film, I went and practice and I went and watched previous games. I was just trying to see where I could improve my game, what can I bring to this team and try to get the guys motivated to be where we want to be. That’s my mindset right now.”
To be fair to Jacobs, he was in a tough spot. Not only were the Raiders facing the best run defending team in the league, but they were doing so with an offensive line that almost entirely spent the week at home in quarantine due to a positive COVID-19 test by tackle Trent Brown.
Tackle Kolton Miller and quarterback Derek Carr both mentioned that there were some communications issues with the line due to their absence from practice all week. Jacobs sees that as the primary issue in the run game as well.
“We had a lot of guys that didn’t practice the whole week until the [day of the game]. We weren’t all on the same page at the same time,” Jacobs said. “It was kind of slow at certain times getting certain reads and certain things. So, that’s the thing I’d say. Probably not being able to have a full week of practice. It was technically two weeks off for them guys, just coming in and trying to play.”
It’s impossible to dispute this as being a contributing factor in the run game woes. Add the fact that two of Sunday’s starters left with injuries and you have tough sledding for the man who has to try and run behind them.
This may explain just how much of a dropoff it was for Jacobs, who had become known for his yards after contact numbers over 13 games as a rookie. But it doesn’t explain everything.
His 1.7 yards per carry is easily a career-low, but it’s not an outlier for this season entirely. Jacobs has now had his four worst yards per carry games of his career this season.
He had three games last season in which he ran for under four yards per carry, with a career-low of 3.40. Already this season he has had games in which he averaged 3.20, 3.26, and 3.35 yards per carry and has only cracked four yards per carry once (4.44 vs Patriots). His season average is a paltry 3.4 after averaging 4.8 yards per carry last season.
One noticeable absence for Jacobs breaking the big run. His longest run this season went for just 16 yards. His QB thinks he Jacobs has been close to breaking open for a big run, but it just hasn’t happened yet.
“These runs are so close to just popping and being some explosive gains,” said Derek Carr.
“It’s definitely been the little things when trying to break a big run,” Jacobs said. “We’ve been kinda close on a lot of plays. I’m my hardest critic. I come in every practice and try to point out and nitpick the things that I can get better at. Especially in the run game. Just trying to be more patient, trying to hit things, trying not to thing so much, just go out there and run. . . it’s just a matter of time before everything starts clicking.”
For that to happen it could depend on the offensive line getting back healthy. That won’t happen this week with Richie Incognito still on IR with an Achilles injury, but the team could get some help if Trent Brown can come off the reserve/COVID-19 list.
You just hope Jacobs performing at a high level won’t always depend on the offensive line being at full strength.
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