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The Las Vegas Raiders are planning to use the franchise tag on running back Josh Jacobs for the 2023 season, sources confirmed to ESPN on Friday.
The franchise tag for running backs for the 2023 season will cost $10.09 million. The deadline for teams to use the tag is Tuesday at 4 p.m. ET.
Players on the tag have until mid-July to reach a long-term deal. NFL Network was first to report that the Raiders planned to use the tag on Jacobs.
Jacobs picked a fine time to have a career year. With the Raiders’ new regime of general manager Dave Ziegler and coach Josh McDaniels choosing to not pick up the 2019 first-round pick’s fifth-year option, all Jacobs did was lead the NFL with 1,653 rushing yards — joining Marcus Allen (1985) and Clem Daniels (1963 AFL) as the only players in franchise history to lead the league in rushing.
He also led the NFL with 2,053 all-purpose yards.
Still, Jacobs, who turned 25 on Feb. 11, has insisted he was not insulted by the snub.
Jacobs’ monster season in a contract year took McDaniels by surprise, too, as he was used to employing a running back-by-committee approach in his time with the New England Patriots. At the end of the season, McDaniels said he hoped to re-sign Jacobs, who averaged 3.9 yards after contact, per NextGen Stats, tied for the best such mark in the NFL with the Cleveland Browns’ Nick Chubb.
Besides leading the league in rushing and all-purpose yards, the First Team All-Pro selection also had the NFL’s longest run of the season. His 86-yard walk-off touchdown in overtime at the Seattle Seahawks on Nov. 27 was the second-longest OT rushing TD in the NFL since 1974, trailing only Garrison Hearst’s 96-yard scamper for the San Francisco 49ers on Sept. 6, 1998. Jacobs finished with a franchise-record 303 total yards against the Seahawks.
Jacobs, who carried the ball 340 times and averaged 4.9 yards per carry while scoring 12 TDs in 2022, also became just the 15th running back in NFL history to score at least seven TDs in each of their first four seasons, as 10 of those 15 players are in the Pro Football Hall of Fame. He also caught 53 passes for a career-high 400 yards last season and his league-high 93 rushing first downs were the most by a Raiders back since 1994.
In 60 career games over four seasons, Jacobs, the No. 24 overall pick of the 2019 draft out of Alabama, has rushed for 4,740 yards, averaging 4.4 yards per carry, and 40 TDs while catching 160 passes for 1,152 yards and being named to the Pro Bowl in 2020 and 2022.
