I was surprised last night when Matt LaFleur, minutes after watching Austin Ekeler suffer a career-ending Achilles injury, decided it would be a good idea to send out Josh Jacobs for a couple more carries in a 9-point game with under 3 minutes left.
That seems wildly reckless to me. The Packers are on the short list of teams with a good chance of lifting the Lombardi, but they can’t do it without Jacobs. So why send him out at the tail end of a game that was over? It’s a lengthy, grueling season, so better to get him out of harm’s way whenever possible.
Instead, Jacobs hardly came off the field. He was the only Green Bay running back to carry the ball. Since the start of last year, there have been only 28 such games (with a team giving carries to only one running back). It happened twice in Week 1 (with Chase Brown and D’Andre Swift), and it happened 25 times last year.
| ONE-BACK BACKFIELDS | |||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Date | Player | Opp | Result | Att | Yds | Avg | TD |
| 9/8/24 | Jonathan Taylor, Ind. | Hou. | L, 27-29 | 16 | 48 | 3.0 | 1 |
| 9/9/24 | Jordan Mason, S.F. | NYJ | W, 32-19 | 28 | 147 | 5.3 | 1 |
| 9/15/24 | Zach Charbonnet, Sea. | at N.E. | W, 23-20 | 14 | 38 | 2.7 | 1 |
| 9/22/24 | Saquon Barkley, Phil. | at N.O. | W, 15-12 | 17 | 147 | 8.6 | 2 |
| 10/6/24 | James Conner, Ari. | at S.F. | W, 24-23 | 19 | 86 | 4.5 | 0 |
| 10/24/24 | Aaron Jones, Min. | at LAR | L, 20-30 | 19 | 58 | 3.1 | 0 |
| 10/27/24 | Jonathan Taylor, Ind. | at Hou. | L, 20-23 | 20 | 105 | 5.3 | 1 |
| 11/3/24 | Chase Brown, Cin. | L.V. | W, 41-24 | 27 | 120 | 4.4 | 0 |
| 11/7/24 | Chase Brown, Cin. | at Balt. | L, 34-35 | 13 | 42 | 3.2 | 1 |
| 11/10/24 | Jonathan Taylor, Ind. | Buff. | L, 20-30 | 21 | 114 | 5.4 | 0 |
| 11/17/24 | Jonathan Taylor, Ind. | at NYJ | W, 28-27 | 24 | 57 | 2.4 | 0 |
| 11/17/24 | Chase Brown, Cin. | at LAC | L, 27-34 | 22 | 86 | 3.9 | 0 |
| 11/24/24 | Joe Mixon, Hou. | Ten. | L, 27-32 | 14 | 22 | 1.6 | 0 |
| 11/24/24 | Jonathan Taylor, Ind. | Det. | L, 6-24 | 11 | 35 | 3.2 | 0 |
| 11/28/24 | D'Andre Swift, Chi. | at Det. | L, 20-23 | 11 | 39 | 3.5 | 0 |
| 12/1/24 | Jonathan Taylor, Ind. | at N.E. | W, 25-24 | 25 | 96 | 3.8 | 0 |
| 12/1/24 | Joe Mixon, Hou. | at Jac. | W, 23-20 | 20 | 101 | 5.1 | 1 |
| 12/1/24 | Alvin Kamara, N.O. | LAR | L, 14-21 | 23 | 112 | 4.9 | 0 |
| 12/8/24 | James Cook, Buff. | at LAR | L, 42-44 | 6 | 20 | 3.3 | 0 |
| 12/12/24 | Isaac Guerendo, S.F. | LAR | L, 6-12 | 16 | 57 | 3.6 | 0 |
| 12/22/24 | Chase Brown, Cin. | Cle. | W, 24-6 | 18 | 91 | 5.1 | 0 |
| 12/29/24 | Jonathan Taylor, Ind. | at NYG | L, 33-45 | 32 | 125 | 3.9 | 2 |
| 12/30/24 | Isaac Guerendo, S.F. | Det. | L, 34-40 | 9 | 34 | 3.8 | 0 |
| 1/4/25 | Khalil Herbert, Cin. | at Pitt. | W, 19-17 | 20 | 69 | 3.5 | 0 |
| 1/5/25 | Jonathan Taylor, Ind. | Jac. | W, 26-23 | 34 | 177 | 5.2 | 1 |
| 9/7/25 | • Chase Brown, Cin. | at Cle. | W, 17-16 | 21 | 43 | 2.0 | 1 |
| 9/8/25 | • D'Andre Swift, Chi. | Min. | L, 24-27 | 17 | 53 | 3.1 | 0 |
| 9/11/25 | Josh Jacobs, G.B. | Was. | W, 27-18 | 23 | 84 | 3.7 | 1 |
The Packers have other running backs, and I imagine we’ll see them in future weeks. (It’s not really realistic to expect Jacobs to carry the ball 20-plus times for 17 games.) Emanuel Wilson and Chris Brooks both averaged about 5 yards per carry last year, and they picked MarShawn Lloyd in the third round of last year’s draft (he’s struggled with injuries).
Green Bay worked in Brooks some as a third-down back last night; he caught 3 passes (compared to only 1 for Jacobs).
In the event Jacobs misses some games (and most backs do), I would think the Packers will be using a combination of Wilson and Brooks to replace him (and Lloyd, I suppose, if he can get healthy and win a role). Thus far, Brooks has been getting on the field more; he’s better on passing downs. But Wilson is still listed as the second-string back on the team’s depth chart, and he ran for 502 yards and 4 TDs last year – almost 3 times as many rushing yards as Brooks.
—Ian Allan