Should Fantasy Managers Worry About the Packers RB?

The Green Bay Packers enter Saturday night’s crucial Week 17 matchup against the Baltimore Ravens with their NFC East hopes still hanging in the balance. Josh Jacobs has been battling through a persistent knee injury for weeks, and his situation took a turn for the worse in last week’s loss to the Chicago Bears. Will fantasy football managers have their workhorse running back available for the championship round?

Josh Jacobs Injury Update

Jacobs has been dealing with a knee contusion since the Week 11 game against the New York Giants. The injury has limited his practice participation for several weeks, but Jacobs has consistently played through the discomfort and remained productive. Last week presented a different scenario, as Jacobs did not practice at all leading up to the Bears game yet still suited up.

The running back’s night ended prematurely in Week 16. Jacobs stopped taking the field at some point in the second half, and Emanuel Wilson handled the backfield duties the rest of the way. Wilson outsnapped Jacobs 33 to 28 and matched his 14 carries while outgaining him 82 yards to 48 yards. This marked the first time Jacobs failed to finish a game since returning from the knee injury.

Jacobs addressed his status for Saturday’s game against Baltimore, offering a cautiously optimistic update. “I’m practicing a little bit more this week, so that’s a positive,” Jacobs said. “But I don’t know. We’re going to see.” Head coach Matt LaFleur confirmed that Jacobs would be a limited participant at Tuesday’s practice, which represents an upgrade from last week’s complete absence.

It is encouraging that Jacobs feels capable of doing more at practice this week. However, this knee injury shows no signs of resolving itself during the season. Jacobs would benefit from taking a week off to recover, but there has been no indication the Packers plan to shut him down.

Jacobs can certainly play through the injury again, as he has demonstrated multiple times already. Whether Green Bay allows him to gut it out for another week remains uncertain.

Expect Jacobs to carry a limited designation throughout the week and land on the final injury report with a questionable tag. Wilson would become a must-start RB2 option if Jacobs cannot play, as he has already proven capable of handling a full workload in previous absences.

Jacobs’ Fantasy Outlook

And this, friends, is why the NFL is a game for gladiators.

Jacobs was on crutches during the work week and signed up for having 11 grown athletes chase him around the field on Saturday. I slept funny on Monday and was wondering aloud if I’d have to pull out of playing HORSE with my nephew on New Year’s Eve.

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There are levels to this and NFL players are unique behind comprehension. We’ve become so immune to superhuman recoveries that defy logic that when something like the Jacobs situation happens, we are taken aback.

Quarter 1: 52.9% snap share

Quarter 2: 31.8% snap share

Quarter 3: 60% snap share

Quarter 4 and Overtime: 12.5% snap share

When an extended rest was possible, Jacobs was trying to give it a go, but his health simply wasn’t sustainable and that shouldn’t be viewed as a surprise.

Again, he opened the week on crutches.

So yea, you can complain about his 14 touches netting just 4.8 PPR points for you, but if you think about the facts we had entering the game, you were the one that elected to click him in with the risk known.

It doesn’t sound as if he did any additional damage to his bulky knee and with Green Bay battling for that final playoff spot, I think it’s more likely than not that we see him suit up again on Saturday night.

Emanuel Wilson is a must roster at this point because we simply don’t know. Could the Pack rest Jacobs this weekend with the hope that he’s close to healthy for Week 18 and (hopefully) a playoff game or two?

At the end of the day, I think you’re playing Jacobs if we think he can handle 15+ touches. This run game worked last week (Wilson ran for 82 yards on 14 carries and that was without his average being inflated by a single attempt) and with potential chaos/limitations at the QB position, I’d expect this offense to function through the handoff.

I currently have Jacobs as in and handling 15-17 touches. That’s obviously not the 20+ that we were getting through the first two months, but he is averaging a career-high 0.90 PPR points per touch this season and that would be enough to get us home, even at lesser usage.

— PFSN Fantasy Analyst Kyle Soppe