top-quartile TD share, an age-28 aging curve, and below-average efficiency. Three flags, one back.
Josh Jacobs 2026 Season Preview — the triple flag
Show notes & transcript▾
Josh Jacobs scored thirteen rushing touchdowns last year and finished a top-ten back per game. He also ran for four yards a carry, finished below average in yards over expected, and turns twenty-eight this season. That's three flags on one back, and the price is paying for none of them. The Muffed 2026 preview.
The season: fifteen-eight a game, RB10 per game, on a heavy Green Bay workload — but the value was almost pure touchdown equity. Thirteen rushing scores, tied fourth in the league. Underneath them: four yards a carry and minus seven rushing yards over expected, thirty-seventh among qualified backs. The signature was a forty-yard touchdown at Denver — and it was, by the data, the only truly explosive run on his entire leaderboard all year. Boom-or-bust by design: four big games, four near-zeroes.
The arc: thirteen-nine, seventeen-two, fifteen-eight. The good years are touchdown-inflated, and the most recent one came with declining efficiency — his yards per carry fell from four-four to four-flat.
Now the three flags, because this is the cleanest fade in the batch. One: his touchdown share is thirty-five-point-four percent, the highest of any back we cover, deep in the quartile our rule fades by three points a game. Two: he's a career-year-seven back at age twenty-eight, where the RB aging curve docks another point-plus. Three: his rushing efficiency was below average — minus seven over expected — so he isn't creating the yardage, he's converting goal-line volume into scores that won't repeat at that rate.
The situation doesn't help, per the reports: Jacobs projects to dominate Green Bay's backfield touches again, which keeps the volume — but the offense lost about a hundred vacated touches it hasn't replenished, his cap number is a future concern, and he dealt with calf, knee, and ankle issues in 2025. Volume on poor efficiency at age twenty-eight is the exact profile that falls off without warning.
The price: pick thirty-eight, the eighteenth back. Verdict: CALL — overpriced. Touchdown-share fade, aging fade, and below-average efficiency, all on the same player, at a price that assumes the thirteen touchdowns repeat. The counter: the workload is secure and goal-line backs score touchdowns — but thirteen on this efficiency, at this age, is the bet we won't make. Let someone else.
September watch: the goal-line touchdown rate, where thirteen scores has the most to lose; and the yards per carry, which needs to climb off four-flat to argue the efficiency isn't gone. Your guys, every week. Next preview's queued.
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2025: 929 rushing yards on 234 carries, 13 rushing TDs; 36 catches for 282 yards, 1 receiving TDs on 44 targets (15 games)
More episodes
2025 ReviewMay 11, 2026Josh Jacobs 2025 Season in Review
RB13 on the season — 15 games, 15.8 PPR/game
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Josh Jacobs 2025 Season in Review
RB13 on the season — 15 games, 15.8 PPR/game
Show notes & transcript
Josh Jacobs finished 2025 as the number 13 running back in total points-per-reception scoring and the number 10 back in points per game. That's a second straight year of locked-in starter production in Green Bay, built almost entirely on one thing: touchdowns. Jacobs didn't break long runs. He didn't dominate the receiving game. He didn't dust defenders in space. What he did was finish drives — tied for fourth in the entire league with 13 rushing scores. In a Packers offense that ranked fourth in total offensive expected points added, Jacobs was the guy they fed when the field got short, and he cashed in often enough to live as a back-end number 1 running back every week he was upright.
Now let's dig into the numbers — and the numbers explain everything. Jacobs ran 234 times for 929 yards across 15 games — exactly four a carry — and his rushing yards over expected came in at minus 7.3, ranking 37th among qualified runners. Translation: slightly below-average per-carry, and the volume wasn't elite either. The receiving role was modest: 36 catches on 44 targets for 282 yards on a 10 percent target share, fine but nothing that props up a floor. So the fantasy value was almost pure touchdown equity, and that made him boom-or-bust by design. The game log screams it. Four games above 19 points, including a 32-point eruption against the Bengals and a 31.7 against the Cowboys — but also a 4.0 at the Giants, a 4.8 at the Bears in Week 16, and a 1.3 against the Ravens in Week 17. When the touchdowns came, he was a league-winner. When they didn't, he was a zero. No middle.
The play that captured the whole season came in Week 15 at Denver. Third quarter, first and ten at the Broncos' 40, Packers up 16 to 14 — Jacobs took a handoff off left tackle and went the distance. Forty yards, touchdown, nearly four expected points on a single snap. That was the only truly explosive run on his top-play leaderboard all year; everything else was a short-yardage or red-zone finish from inside the 20. That's Jacobs in 2025 in one image: a touchdown merchant in a high-powered offense, occasionally capable of the bigger play, but earning his fantasy keep at the goal line.
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