The Packer who ran back to Josh Jacobs had an excellent first season at Green Bay, and his form rediscovered after a soft final year in Las Vegas. He has exceeded 1,400 yards for the second time in his career and has a career-high 17 touchdowns.
By looking at some more advanced statistics under the hood, Jacobs’ game level in 2024 can be better understood over his wider career and can identify his overall game strengths and weaknesses.
The core of Jacobs' first year of success as a packer is his ability to create code after contact, both as a runner and as a receiver.
Among the qualified defenders, Jacobs was forced to tackle the 86th percentile after each attempt (YCO/A), the 84th percentile of the Elusivesice Level (ELU) and the 76th percentile of the 76th percentile (MTF/A).
His YCO/A was a career-high 3.49 this season, while his MTF/A was 0.25, which was behind his career best 0.26.
Coupled with his ability in the pass game, Jacobs ranked 86% in the 86th percentile as tackles were forced to lead every touch and tackles beaten after receiving the ball were forced to lead. He has done a great job throughout the season, locking down and adding real value to him.
Jacobs' impressive excitement in 2024 marks a significant improvement in his career average. His 99.4 rating is the highest of his rookie year, with an average career score of up to 70.
He has always had a trick to find the runner's finish area, arriving at Green Bay with 46ers for five years, which continues with the Packers. Jacobs ranked 88th percentile per touchdown in 2024, scoring a 5.02% higher career score.
Jacobs' biggest area of improvement after joining the Packers is his contribution to the passing game. He and the team mentioned doing more and supporting him, and they used him more as a receiver.
He is one of the best threats the NFL gets from the backcourt, ranking in the 86th percentile among qualified guards, 95th yards after each catch, and a career high in every three categories.
Jacobs, who had no passes in 2024, dropped at least three in his first few seasons, eventually ending up with a touchdown for the first time.
Jacobs’ games don’t have many weaknesses, but some of them are fixed, and some are not.
Style-wise, Jacobs is not an explosive runner or a home run batsman at all, he never did. He ran a 4.64 40 yard dash from Alabama and used the overall speed score and "poor" explosion score using the Relative Sports Score (RAS) system.
In 2024, he ranked 48th percentile with a run of more than 10 yards or "explosive run" and a 38th position (bay%) in the percentage. None of these are scary traces anyway, but emphasises that he is not an exciting runner.
His bay percentage is 22.2% consistent with his previous career average of 22.18%, and his explosive 10.66% is actually better than his career average of 9.79%.
Jacobs expressed his desire to improve his ability to break the bigger run last week to Green Bay Media.
"I feel like I'm leaving a lot of stuff on the table," he said, and then explained, "I have a guy who, if I make someone miss or break the tackle, that's the difference between a 20-yard growth and a 60-yard gain. That's what makes people elite."
Whether this is the type and sporty runner of Jacob's runner who can really improve into his seventh year is still to be seen and seems relatively unlikely, but it's clearly Jacobs' focus.
One aspect he can continue to work on is protecting football. Jacobs has five turnovers in his career in 2024, the 28th percentage point of failure in each attempt.
His PFF turnover rating has been only 61.4 in the past two years, compared to 74.5 in his first four seasons.
Glance similar to receiver drops, as they are overestimated as a means of analyzing the overall performance of a player. Jacobs swallowed only 1.57% of his carry in 2024. However, it's still a shocking trend and he needs to hone this.
By any means, pass protection is not Jacob’s true weakness. He is satisfying in 2024, but this is an area where he can still improve.
He ranks 44th percentile among qualified defenders, allows pressure rate that allows pressure on the snapshot and allows QB hits above any other back, despite his pass stabilization efficiency above average, ranking in the 55th percentile.
Again, these are not disastrous statistics, nor any stats to worry about, and both are worse than his previous career average, which should encourage Jacob to be a stronger stopper in 2025.
Overall, Jacobs was one of the best all-around defenders in the league last year, and the Packers will hope that he will mostly just keep what he has been doing while continuing to work hard to take better care of the ball and be consistent in passing protection.
His career figure shows that he is unlikely to become more explosive, but if he scores fewer goals in 2025 and sophomore Marshawn Lloyd works to get Jacobs to take a breath, he may become more efficient.
Jacobs worked on his blockages sometimes in 2024, and the group scored 60.25 in the running phase of that year, which was just above average.
In this sense, Jacobs is definitely worthy of Green Bay so far. Technically, to get more than blocking what the team pays off what they have to do, he has done it.
According to PFF, in 4.4 yards per carry (YPC) or better backs, there are only two blocks that run worse than Jacobs: Tank Bigsby of Jacksonville and De'von Achane of Miami, who have only 168 and 203 attempts compared to Jacobs' 319 attempts.
The Packers emphasize that it is important to strengthen the offensive line during the offseason, given the type of runner Jacobs is.
It might be unrealistic to expect Jacobs to do nothing at the speed he did a year ago, and he needs to get something to work with because the explosive run won't fill his numbers there.
If Green Bay settled in a mediocre running unit, they might have spent a less effective year like his last in Las Vegas, when the poor O-line sold him to him year round.
The YPC is still good at 4.4, ranking 60th percentage point last year, but with a break and better blockage, it could be better in 2025, Jacobs is firmly at the top of his career.