There is a case to be made that the Raiders will benefit more from losses than wins to close out the season, but the offseason decision by the organization to move on from Josh Jacobs is one that isn’t looking great in the third week of November.
Going into week 12, Jacobs is third in the NFL in rushing yards and his 4.8 yards per carry this season is only 0.1 behind his YPC in 2022 when he led the league is rushing yards.
Even well-run organizations make regrettable personnel decisions and it’s hard to watch the Raiders’ running game this year and feel like it was a wise decision to let Jacobs leave in free agency
Yahoo and FOX Sports host Jason Fitz talked about Jacobs this week and he feels the Raiders lost a valuable commodity when Jacobs signed with the Green Bay Packers.
“I think it’s probably fair to say and nobody wants to hear this right now, but this team misses Josh Jacobs,” Fitz said on Raider Nation Radio’s The Morning Tailgate.
“If you watch what happened for the Packers-Bears game, I had to go back and watch that yesterday as part of my homework,” Fitz continued. “One thing that’s interesting is you just see that certain running backs save. They just save everything. They find a squeeze, they find a sliver, and they turn it into something that gets two, three, four yards, and that’s what Josh did his entire career… I think if Josh Jacobs were behind this offensive line, the running game would look better than it does, and that’s no discredit to the guys out there doing it. It’s just they’re not Josh.”
What happened between Jacobs and the Raiders is water under the bridge now, and the only way the team is going to turn around their trajectory is to find a quarterback before the start of next season.
Considering the veteran quarterbacks expected to enter free agency, the best way to find a quarterback this year is by means of the draft, and the more losses that pile up in Las Vegas between now and the end of the season, the better the chances will be that Shedeur Sanders or Cam Ward will be wearing silver and black next year.
If the season were to end today, Vegas would have the fifth pick in the draft and that there’s a chance the fifth pick wouldn’t be high enough to get one of the consensus top quarterbacks in the draft.
One more win on the season and the Raiders probably won’t be able to claw back into the top 3 picks. Strength of schedule is going to hurt the Raiders in terms of draft tiebreakers, so they might need to be decisively bad down the stretch if they hope to have a realistic opportunity at Sanders or Ward.
x: @raidersbeat
It’s hard to feel confident in any moves the RaaDuhs make will turn out good . They’ve had “the goocher” bad for decades now basically. We love beating the Doncos, but last year we beat them in a meaningless game for AP. In the process lose out on a drafting a qb ( Doncos got one it looks like) and don’t pursue Harbaugh at all . Who in-turn goes to the division rival chargers. Both teams are now going to the playoffs . RaaDuhs got the chargers old gm out of the deal though. Who thought getting Uncle Rico Raider for $7 mill combined with AOC at qb was a good idea. Instead of Russ for the league minimum( salary paid by the Doncos btw), who is also going to the playoffs. Watch new owner and Mark’s Puppet Master Brady will want to bring in Belicheck and McDaniels( “the horror”). Who weren’t actually very good without Brady playing for them. It’s like stupidity plus bad luck, plus bizarre equals Thuh RaaDuhs .
First and foremost, you never miss someone who doesn’t want to be there. Second, but the way the offensive line is performed nobody and I stress nobody would have success running the ball this season behind that line.
Ya think?