Josh Jacobs

Fantasy Upside

Josh Jacobs is off to a nice start to his career. He has back-to-back 1,000-plus-yard seasons to go with 12 touchdowns last year. Jacobs has been a workhorse, averaging 20.3 touches per game through his first two years in the league. Jacobs should continue to be a heavy part of the offense, and he gets touches in the red zone, so his double-digit touchdowns from last year seem sustainable.

Fantasy Downside

Jacobs’ biggest drawback is a mere 72 targets through two years – a number that seems destined to go down with the addition of Kenyan Drake to the offense. Expect Jacobs’ touches to decrease overall with Drake on the team, which could turn him into more of an RB2 than an RB1 option in most leagues, particularly in PPR and half-PPR formats. Jacobs has also dealt with nagging injuries already, and while he mostly plays through them, he’s missed four games so far and we’ll see how he does if they keep adding up.

2021 Bottom Line

Jacobs is slipping to the late-4th right now in redraft leagues, which makes him interesting to me. He should still get two-down work and has a nice shot at repeating his touchdown numbers, so he isn’t without value. We have him ranked as a low-end RB2 right now, which seems fair enough, but the difference between him and similarly drafted backs is that low-end RB2 seems like a floor for Jacobs. His range of outcomes looks smaller than other options, but if you need someone to get 10-15 guaranteed touches and a better than 50-50 chance at a touchdown, you could do worse than Jacobs in the running back dead zone.