Josh Jacobs made headlines this past season—not just for his Pro Bowl campaign with the Green Bay Packers, but for a bizarre story about how things ended with the Las Vegas Raiders, the team that drafted him in 2019.
Jacobs joined the Packers in 2024 after five seasons with the Raiders, signing a four-year, $48 million deal in free agency. While he’s thriving in Green Bay, Jacobs recently shared an odd behind-the-scenes account that signaled the end of his tenure in Las Vegas.
Josh Jacobs Opens Up About End With Las Vegas Raiders
On a recent episode of Bussin’ With the Boys, Jacobs opened up about a final encounter with a Raiders staffer that left him unsettled:
“What’s crazy is when they were trying to get me to come sign, this is crazy. Before I came to sign, me and Maxx [Crosby] on the phone. Maxx trying to make it work. He was like, ‘Man, please. Just come,’” Jacobs recalled. “So we come up there, and we got like an hour left before we gotta sign the paper on the deal. Me and Maxx is in the car. Dude comes up to my car, and he’s talking to us, but he’s moving his phone around. He’s on the phone with an interviewer. Literally on the phone with a reporter while he’s talking to me.”
Jacobs suggested this wasn’t an isolated incident.
“I know it’s one reporter over there, any time he had anything to say and it’d be like, ‘Where people getting this information from?’ I’m like it’s coming from them,” he added. “It was just a weird situation, bro. It has nothing to do with the Raiders organization. It’s more so the people that they had in there at the time.”
Jacobs didn’t immediately confront the moment, but the realization was clear.
“What made it worse, I seen it and I didn’t say nothing. Maxx was like, ‘Bro, did you see who he was on the phone with?’ I said, OK, so I’m not tripping. That’s when I knew the relationship was over with.”
The Raiders drafted Jacobs 24th overall in 2019, then based in Oakland. He quickly became a standout, finishing second in Offensive Rookie of the Year voting after tallying 1,150 rushing yards and seven touchdowns. After the team’s move to Las Vegas, Jacobs continued to perform at a high level, including a breakout All-Pro season in 2022 when he led the NFL with 1,653 rushing yards and added 12 touchdowns, plus 53 catches for 400 yards.
However, Las Vegas declined his fifth-year option before that standout campaign, then placed the franchise tag on him in 2023 instead of offering a long-term contract. He played that season on a one-year, $12 million tag, missing the final four games with a quad injury and finishing with just 805 yards and six touchdowns.
Free agency followed—and so did the exit.
While Raiders fans might prefer to forget the awkward ending, Jacobs has moved on in dominant fashion. In his debut season with the Packers, he ranked 6th in the league with 1,329 rushing yards and finished second in rushing touchdowns with 15. He also added 36 receptions for 342 yards and scored the first receiving touchdown of his career.
What happened with the Raiders may not reflect the entire organization, Jacobs noted, but rather “the people they had in there at the time.” Still, it’s a troubling story from a team looking to turn over a new leaf under Pete Carroll and Tom Brady’s new leadership regime.