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Josh Jacobs just couldn’t do it.
Even with the Chiefs’ victories in the last two Super Bowls, and even with most of their roster still intact for a third consecutive run, Jacobs, who left the Raiders for the Packers in NFL free agency, didn’t see himself as someone who could flip from one side of the AFC West rivalry to the other.
“They were trying to get me hard,” Jacobs told The Athletic. “But there was no way I was going there. I feel like once you are rivals with somebody, you have a genuine hate for them.”
So instead, Jacobs went to the Packers and became their replacement for Aaron Jones, who signed a one-year deal with the Vikings.
After leading the NFL in rushing yards (1,653) in 2022, Las Vegas placed the franchise tag on Jacobs, and he ended up playing the 2023 campaign — when he collected just 805 yards across 13 games and averaged a career-low 3.5 yards per carry — on a one-year deal.
But he still turned that production into a four-year, $48 million contract once hitting free agency, though it appears that the Packers — constructing their roster around franchise quarterback Jordan Love and a young group of receivers that impressed last year — had some competition to find the centerpiece of their backfield.
Jacobs, a first-round pick in the 2019 NFL Draft, was on the Raiders’ roster for 10 meetings against the Chiefs, and just two of those games turned into wins for Las Vegas.
During their game on Christmas last year, the Raiders manufactured two defensive touchdowns in seven seconds — one off a fumble recovery, another off an interception of Patrick Mahomes — to leave Arrowhead Stadium with a 20-14 upset.
Jacobs was inactive for that game while dealing with a quad injury that cost him the final four games of the season.
“I couldn’t see myself in that color,” Jacobs told The Athletic of the Chiefs. “And besides, I never wanted to be the guy that joined the dominant team. I want to be the guy that beats the dominant team.”
Jacobs and the Packers will open their 2024 season against the Eagles in Brazil on Sept. 6, while the Chiefs — and their running back room of Isiah Pacheco and Clyde Edwards-Helaire — will face the Ravens in Week 1.
