Josh Jacobs’ 2025 Season: Did He Outrun the Legends or Fall Short?

Green Bay’s approach to their running back room has become pretty unmistakable under Brian Gutekunst’s watch—it’s all about those rugged, tough-as-nails backs who excel at punching through traffic rather than breaking away on highlight-reel runs. This preference, paired with a scheme that’s all about those tight, inside runs, has the Packers shaping their backfield around a very specific prototype—think Josh Jacobs, the quintessential workhorse. The idea? Give Jacobs or someone built like him the ball relentlessly, aiming for that 300-plus carry mark in a season. Injuries kept Jacobs from hitting that exact number, but the question remains: what exactly did the Packers get for their investment? I’ve poked around this before when dissecting his cap impact, but now it’s time to dig even deeper into the numbers and see how Jacobs stacks up against the league’s heavy-use backs. LEARN MORE

Under the guidance of general manager Brian Gutekunst, the Packers have developed a pronounced tendency at running back. The team favors burly, powerful backs, valuing their ability to grind out yards as opposed to ripping off big gains. Coupled with an increased focus on gap-oriented, inside runs, this has led to a Packers’ backfield made up of essentially one kind of runner: players in the mold of Josh Jacobs.

The Packers want Jacobs, or a Jacobs-style back, to handle the ball a lot, turning their primary ballcarrier into a workhorse that will tote the rock upwards of 300 times over the course of the season. Due to injuries, Jacobs didn’t quite hit that threshold, but it’s still worth comparing him to other backs who carried the ball a lot to see what the Packers were getting for their money. I’ve already done a bit of this in my cap-related examination of Jacobs’ future in Green Bay, but this will dive a little bit deeper into the data.

Here’s what we’re looking at: Jacobs carried the ball 234 times in the 2025 regular season, so I gathered information on all the runners in the NFL who carried the ball at least 200 times. In the modern NFL, that only gets us 21 names, about two-thirds of the league (a potential red flag for the Packers’ strategy; if it’s a good idea for one guy to carry the ball a whole bunch, why aren’t more teams doing it?). For comparison, in 2000

Among those backs, Jacobs had the second-highest cap hit ($11.3 million) and was tied for the fifth-oldest player. 10 of the 21 backs on the list were 25 years old or younger this season.

How did Jacobs do? Compared to other backs carrying the ball a lot, Jacobs’ 2025 wasn’t great. While he did score a lot of touchdowns (his 13 ranked third on the list behind Jonathan Taylor and Derrick Henry), on a per-carry basis, Jacobs was pretty bad. Only three players had a worse per-carry average than Jacobs’ 4.0 in 2025. For comparison, five players averaged more than 5.0 yards per carry, and 13 averaged 4.5 or better — more than half the list of players were at least half a yard better per carry than Jacobs in 2025.

Situationally, Jacobs was also pretty uninspiring. His success rate of 49.1% ranked 12th, essentially right in the middle of the pack. Notably, that was a significant decline from 2024, when Jacobs posted a success rate of 52.2%.

And worst of all, Jacobs was merely average again in the areas where he’s typically excelled: forcing missed tackles and creating yards after contact. Jacobs tied for 11th on the list with 47 missed tackles forced in 2025, according to Pro Football Focus. That figure was probably dragged down a bit by the fact that Jacobs only played in 15 games last season (every player ahead of him played in at least 16 games, and six of them appeared in all 17), but that’s not really a point in Jacobs’ favor. If your workhorse back is breaking down, a trip to the glue factory may not be far in the future.

As far as yards after contact, Jacobs averaged merely 3.06 yards after contact per carry, good for 12th on our list of 21 backs. In fairness to Jacobs, most of the players ahead of him were only better by about half a yard, but it feels noteworthy that the leader was De’Von Achane, who averaged 4.11 yards after contact per carry despite playing at a listed weight of 188 pounds, about 40 pounds lighter than Jacobs. Size, it seems, is not necessarily a determining factor in producing yards after contact.

In fairness, Jacobs dealt with quite a few challenges this season. He battled nagging injuries throughout the season, which is both a real limiting factor and a concerning development for an already fairly old back. He also faced quite a bit of uncertainty with his offensive line. Aaron Banks and Zach Tom missed a significant amount of time early in the season, and Tom was ultimately lost for the last month of the season with a different injury. Elgton Jenkins, too, missed a good chunk of the year with a leg injury, leaving the Packers pretty shorthanded up front. It’s hard for any back to succeed when his line is in shambles.

Where does that leave us with Jacobs? It’s hard to say for sure, but it seems probable that this is the beginning of the end. How confident are you that a player who was already among the older players in the league to handle a heavy workload will be healthier and more effective when he’s a year older? And how good do you feel committing to an even higher cap hit for Jacobs, knowing that the output is probably going to be similar or worse as he continues to age? It’s not a good place for the Packers to be, but they seem determined to ride with Jacobs and hope for the best.