The deadline for franchise-tagged players to sign new contracts has come and gone with the Las Vegas Raiders and Josh Jacobs failing to come to terms on a new deal. Jacobs, along with fellow running backs Saquon Barkley and Tony Pollard, all failed to agree to terms with their respective teams which has continued the conversation about the valuation of running backs across the NFL overall.
Running back is among the lowest-paid positions in the NFL and teams recently have not hesitated to move on from big-name and big-money players in favor of cheaper options. There have been talks of running backs trying to stop this slide and secure more money for the position overall, and Jacobs hasn’t been shy about the need for this to happen.
But what Jacobs hasn’t done, according to himself at least, was trying to set a new market for backs. In responding to a tweet claiming that the Raiders didn’t want to reset the running back market for Jacobs, the Raiders star said that he never tried to do so:
We never tried to reset the market
— Josh Jacobs (@iAM_JoshJacobs) July 17, 2023
Only the people who were at the negotiating table know exactly what was asked for and offered, but Jacobs has been open about all of his feelings throughout the offseason so it’s difficult to think that this would be any different.
Furthermore, it had been previously reported that Jacobs was looking for a deal that would place him amongst the league’s top paid backs, but not at the top according to Ryan Gaydos of Fox News:
He said at one point he would be a “hero turned villain” if forced to play under the tag. According to the Las Vegas Review-Journal, Jacobs was looking for a deal possibly between $26 and $32 million in full guarantees.
Christian McCaffery has the highest amount of guaranteed money at over $38 million with Alvin Kamara at just over $33 million. So if this is what Jacobs was asking for, he is telling the truth in that he wasn’t looking to reset the market but rather just wanted to be paid like an elite back which he has proven to be.
The question now is whether he will suit up for the Raiders next season. In all likelihood, he will skip training camp, but whether he is really willing to sit out the entire season remains unclear. The plight of running backs in the NFL is continuing, and Jacobs now finds himself at the forefront of the fight.
