Josh Jaocbs, the NFL's reigning rushing leader, continues to stay away from Las Vegas as the Raiders prep for the 2023 campaign.
On Sunday, head coach Josh McDaniels said he had no updates on Jacobs' status but intimated the closer we get to the regular season without the RB reporting, the more it could curtail Jacobs' early-season production.
"I don't have any new news on J.J.," McDaniels said. "I mean, I would say I think that it's important for every player -- 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.
"We've talked all year to our team about nothing carries over from one year to the next. You have to re-establish your individual level of performance and collectively as a unit, and ultimately as a team, we have to establish and re-establish ourselves in terms of what we're going to be about. So, whether it would be J.J. or somebody else, it's the same thing. Everybody's got to have an opportunity to do that, get re-acclimated to the pace, the speed of things. But again, I have no new information on the whole situation."
Jacobs left Vegas after sides couldn't agree to a long-term contract before the July 17 deadline for franchise-tagged players. The RB has not signed the franchise tender, therefore, he's not under contract and not subject to fines.
The franchise tag pays RBs $10.091 million in 2023. Jacobs and the Raiders could agree to a tweaked figure for this season -- as we saw with Saquon Barkley and the Giants -- but negotiations on a multi-year extension can't happen until after the season.
There were questions entering last season about how Jacobs fit in McDaniels' system. The RB silenced those queries with a dominant campaign, leading the NFL with 1,653 rush yards and 2,053 scrimmage yards in 2022. Jacobs had five games with 140-plus rush yards and 1-plus rush TD last year (most in NFL; no other player had more than two such games).
Entering the final week of the preseason, with 20 days until the Raiders kick off Week 1 against the Denver Broncos, the question is how much ramp-up time Jacobs needs before he's ready to ride into 2023. If he doesn't report until just before the regular season, he could need time before his body is ready to absorb 20 hits a game.
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