Still Waiting on the NFL

Three weeks into the season, Josh Jacobs still hasn’t played a snap, and there’s no set date for when that changes. The NFL put him on the Commissioner’s Exempt List at the end of August, a few days after he was charged with misdemeanor battery and criminal damage to property from an incident back in May. While he’s on that list he gets paid, but he can’t practice or suit up on Sundays. Earlier this month Jacobs pleaded no contest to both charges, which wrapped up the criminal side of things. The league’s own review is still going, though, and that’s the part that decides when he actually comes back.

So what happens next? Reports have floated a suspension somewhere in the four to six game range, but nothing is official. The good news, if you can call it that, is the games he’s already missed on the exempt list can count toward whatever suspension he ends up getting. There’s also a new wrinkle: a judge recently denied a request to permanently seal the evidence in the case, which includes surveillance video. The NFL will probably want to see that before making a final call, so this could drag on a little longer than people hoped.

The Backfield Without Him

In the meantime, the Packers are feeling it. MarShawn Lloyd has taken over the starting job and the team traded a late round pick to Pittsburgh for Kaleb Johnson, but the run game just hasn’t shown up. Against Atlanta the Packers ran for 17 yards total, the fewest by a Green Bay team since 2000. Whatever you think about Jacobs off the field, it’s pretty clear this offense was built around having him in the backfield, and right now it’s trying to get by without its most important piece.

Sources: NFL.com, NBC Sports, Yardbarker, suspension range, Yardbarker, evidence ruling, TMJ4.

Featured photo: All-Pro Reels, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons.