Josh Jacobs set up to get back on track in Raiders’ Week 2 game at Bills

By Case Keefer (contact)

Friday, Sept. 15, 2023 | 2 a.m.

The Raiders looked to be facing a fourth-and-inches situation in Broncos’ territory in the third quarter of last Sunday’s game, and Josh Jacobs could be seen lobbying Josh McDaniels to go for it on the sidelines.

McDaniels didn’t end up having a decision at all as the officials re-spotted the ball after a Davante Adams catch over the middle to give the Raiders a first down and send Jacobs rushing back in anyway. The coach was spared of hearing more from the star running back in the moment, but hardly for the rest of the game.

Jacobs maintained his campaign to stay on the field continually, and McDaniels mostly obliged. It was the biggest reason why last year’s NFL rushing-yards leader finished with 48 snaps despite missing all of training camp due to a contract dispute.

“I wasn’t really supposed to play this much but I’m just kind of a competitor,” Jacobs said after the game. “I get in that mode and guys will be trying to come in and I just throw them back to the sideline. That’s kind of what it was.”

The volume was there, but the rushing efficiency was not. Jacobs finished with 19 carries for 48 yards, an average of 2.5 yards per carry that was worse than in any outing in his record-breaking season a year ago.

But no one is harping over the slow start heading into the Raiders’ Week 2 game at 10 a.m. Saturday on the road against the Buffalo Bills. On the contrary, the expectation is for Jacobs to bounce back and better integrate back into his usual spot as a workhorse back with another week of practices to fall back on.

“He’s a football player and he wants to play football, love having him out there,” McDaniels assessed Jacobs’ first game. “There’s going to be things that we’re going to see (to fix). Nobody is more critical of his own performance than JJ, so he’ll things he can do better and he’ll work really hard at improving.”

Turns out practicing with high schoolers isn’t quite the same speed- and conditioning-wise as playing professionally. Jacobs anticipated his late start to joining the Raiders wouldn’t slow him down because he said he spent time preparing at his alma mater of McLain High in his hometown of Tulsa, Oka., throughout August.

But he admitted after Week 1 that he was “a little tired” on a couple Week 1 rush attempts, citing both the Denver elevation and his lack of practice as reasons.

“We had a lot of runs that were really close,” Jacobs said. “It’s just small details, and not only that but I’ve got to knock the rust off too. There were a few plays where I tripped up a bit, plays I knew I could have made or reads that I was a little late on.”

Jacobs will likely eclipse both 19 rush attempts and 48 snaps this weekend in Buffalo, where the Raiders will head today after spending the week camped out for practice at the Greenbrier resort in West Virginia. Las Vegas’ best path to victory in the Week 2 game might be slowing down the game and controlling the clock, something it did well a year ago.

It remains to be seen how Buffalo will gameplan for Jacobs, but it may not devote quite as many resources as Denver did to slowing him in Week 1. The Broncos talked all week about limiting Jacobs, who had destroyed them with four 100-yard rushing performances in five lifetime meetings, and lived up to their word with packed boxes and extra emphasis on stopping the run.

They were content to let Jimmy Garoppolo try to pick them apart with short passes in man coverage, and that’s mostly what the quarterback did in a winning Las Vegas debut. The Bills have typically been more willing to sacrifice yardage on the ground to prevent getting beat through the air.

Buffalo defensive coordinator Leslie Frasier stepped away from the team after last season, but it’s still running the same scheme with head coach Sean McDermott now in charge of the unit. And in the three seasons under Frazier’s watch, the Bills gave up a slightly above average 4.47 yards per carry.

“I knew that was going to be their gameplan,” Jacobs said of the Broncos. “That was all I heard all week coming out from that camp. It is what it is. At the end of the day, I trust and believe in the guys we’ve got around — the receivers, the quarterback, the o-line. If I’m having a bad game or it’s not a running game, I believe that we can still come out and pull out a win.”

Jacobs has led the Raiders to more wins in the last five years since the franchise drafted him than anyone else left on the roster, and the feeling is that more are ahead this year.

The team still named him a captain despite his late arrival, and it’s still got the utmost confidence that he’s going to have a big year despite the lack of production in Week 1.

“With the run game, he’s as good as they come,” Garoppolo said of Jacobs. “It makes my job pretty easy.”

Case Keefer can be reached at 702-948-2790 or [email protected]. Follow Case on Twitter at twitter.com/casekeefer.Case Keefer can be reached at 702-948-2790 or