Last offseason, the new regime in charge of making decisions for the had a tough choice to make. They had until late April to decide whether or not to pick up the fifth-year options on the contracts of 2019 first-round picks , , and .The first two were obvious; there was no way the Raiders were going to pay Ferrell $11.5 million nor Abram $8.034 million for the 2023 season. The fifth-year option decision on Jacobs was slightly (yes, only slightly) more complicated. A salary of $8 million or so for a running back is on the high side, but you can live with it if it's only for one year -- so long as the player proves himself worthy of such a contract, of course.Jacobs had flashed talent during his first three seasons in the , but he was also a mainstay on the injury report and had seemed to take a significant step backward in his second and third seasons following a promising rookie year. After rushing for 1,150 yards and seven touchdowns while averaging 4.8 yards per carry as a rookie, Jacobs totaled 1,937 yards and 21 scores through his next two seasons, but did so while averaging just 4.0 yards a pop. His pa sing-game contributions
Harry Giles III Jersey were muted, and despite his gaudy touchdown totals, he ranked among the least efficient high-volume backs in the league.So, Josh McDaniels and Dave Ziegler decided not to pick up the fifth-year option on Jacobs' contract, deciding instead to take the approximately $3.8 million cap hit for the 2022 season and then see what happens. Well, what has happened is that Jacobs has put together the best season of his career, and one of the best running-back seasons leaguewide (Jacobs and the Raiders face the Steelers on Saturday at 8:15 p.m. ET on NFL Network, ). Through Week 15, he leads the NFL in touches (a career-high 337), as well as rushing yards (a career-high 1,495) and yards from scrimmage (a career-high 1,858). His 5.1 yards per carry mark is a new career best, as is his 6.6 receiving yards per target. He's been much more of a three-down contributor than ever before, playing 75% of the Raiders' offensive snaps this season. His career-high prior to this year was just 63%.Jacobs' six 100-yard rushing games this season are second-most in the league behind only seven; and he joined Henry, , , and as the only active players to rush for 200-plus yards in a game. The 303 yards from scrimmage he recorded in that overtime win against the (which included a game-winning, 86-yard romp in overtime
Mario Hezonja Jersey ) were the fourth-most in a single game since 2000.With Jacobs blowing up this season and headed into free agency next March, it's worth taking a deeper look at his season to see where he has improved, which areas of improvement are most and least sustainable, and what it all might mean for his future contract prospects. Let's start with where Jacobs has improved. He's been both more consistent (his succe s rate is a career-high 46.2%, according to Tru Media) and more explosive (10.3% of his carries have created explosive gains) than ever before. That's a potent combination. He's been able to pull off that dual feat because he's averaging career highs in yards both and contact per carry this season. That's allowed him to avoid negative runs (career-low 13.4% of rushes have been stopped at or behind the line of scrimmage) while keeping the chains moving (42.2% of carries have gained 5 yards or more). He's also kept his broken tackle rate around where it was in his first and third seasons, rather than the dreadful mark he posted in Year 2 of his career. YearSucce s %YBCo/AttYCo/AttGun YPC% 8-Box% Neg% 5+ Yds% ExplAvoid %201940.5%1.273.483.719.8%15.3%34.1%9.1%32.6%202038.8%1.082.824.425.0%19.8%33.7%8.8%22.7%202140.6%1.182.842.917.5%15.7%36.4%6.0%33.2%202246.2%1.533.615.018.9%13.4%42.3%10.3%31.6%The Raiders have put his skills to their best use on
C.J. McCollum Jersey draw plays, and done so more often than any other team. According to Tru Media, Jacobs has more than twice as many carries on run plays categorized as a draw (when the quarterback acts like he's going to pa s to get the rushers up the field, then hands it off up the middle) than the next-closest player. Jacobs has 33 such carries for 175 yards, while has 16 totes for 87 yards on those plays.He's showcased a wonderful combination of patience and decisivene s in his running style this season. NFL.com's NextGen Stats pegs him as the league's second-most north-south runner this year behind only (he ranked 39th out of 52 qualifiers in the same stat last season), but he's also spent about a tenth of a second more behind the line of scrimmage on his average carry this year than last. In other words, he's waiting the extra beat for a hole to open up, then hitting the jets and bursting through. He's also done
Harry Gilles III Jersey a far better job of pre sing the hole until a crease opens up, then cutting back into the correct lane. He's done that on both inside and out runs, and he's spotted cutbacks up the middle or all the way back acro s the formation.When it all comes together on one play, it can look pretty wild. His jaunt against Denver earlier this season where he pre sed the hole to the right, cut all the way back behind three offensive linemen, made a jump-cut, made three defenders mi s in the hole, then broke a tackle a few yards downfield and sped away from a safety to tip off a huge gain was a thing of beauty.Yards after contact and tackle-avoidance are generally things under a running back's control. The ability to create explosive plays usually is, as well. But yards before contact, the lack of negative runs, and even the share of runs that gain 5-plus yards can just as often be attributed to offensive line play and scheme. In other words, it's a combination of skill and circumstance that has led to Jacobs' monster season. The tough part about figuring out what is and isn't sticky from this year's performance is that he had been trending in the opposite direction in so many of these areas. He had been creating fewer and fewer explosive gains and gaining fewer yards after contact with each pa sing season, for example.So, is this the new normal, or should we expect a reversion to where he has been going in prior seasons? Annoyingly, but predictably, the answer is likely somewhere in between. We shouldn't expect this year's version of Jacobs to suddenly be what he is for the next several years. We have a much larger sample of him not being this type of player than we do
Portland Trail Blazers T-Shirts of him producing at this level.But we also maybe shouldn't underestimate the ceiling on his production anymore. It didn't seem like he had this type of season in him, but clearly he does. So, the potential for future payoff over the next few years is there, if everything comes together the way it has for him this year. What does that mean for his future in free agency? Honestly, I am not sure
The Wall