Graney: In standoff with Jacobs, Raiders the clear winner

“I’m back,” Josh Jacobs tweeted Saturday.

And yet the Raiders are the big winners here. Hand them the trophy. It’s a runaway victory.

This was always how things were going to end. The Raiders were always going to come out on top.

Jacobs has returned to the team, the star running back having signed a one-year deal for up to $12 million. You knew he would report at some point, his only leverage being to continue sitting out, leaving a huge wad of cash on the table once games began.

Meaning he didn’t have much leverage. Certainly not as much as the team.

This isn’t a win-win. The Raiders are getting by far the best end of the deal.

They certainly had valid reasons for wanting to lock up a position with a franchise tender at a position that has been devalued across the NFL. It was the smart play, made even smarter by how much money Jacobs has now agreed to for this season. They played this well from the beginning.

A smart play

They get the league’s leading rusher from a season ago, still in his prime, on a one-year rental. The average window for NFL running backs producing at a high level is around five years, and Jacobs will be entering his fifth season.

So they can run him ragged again and hope for the same level of production, or not get it and then walk away. Or we could be doing this all over next season, when the Raiders will retain the right to franchise Jacobs yet again. The team holds all the cards.

The Raiders weren’t going to budge much at all here. You wondered for a while how much they truly valued Jacobs, if they wanted him back, the idea that a running back by committee might generate close to the numbers Jacobs did when having NFL bests for yards (1,653) and touches (393) last year.

But much like with the deal Saquon Barkley signed with the Giants — a franchise tag adjusted from $10.1 million to a guaranteed $11 million with incentives up to $909,000 — the Raiders still only assure Jacobs one year by increasing the money by just $2 million or so. And if Jacobs comes close to his output of last year, it will have been more than worth it.

And if he doesn’t, they’re not tied to him beyond 2023.

Jacobs had every right to feel slighted when the Raiders placed a franchise tag on him and couldn’t agree on a long-term deal. He has more than proven his worth since being drafted in the first round out of Alabama in 2019.

He has 4,740 career rushing yards, the most for any Raiders running back through his first four seasons. More than serious production.

But it has been well-publicized how that position is viewed now across the NFL. I can’t believe the Raiders — who earlier chose not to pick up a fifth-year option on Jacobs — were ever really serious about a deal beyond one season. They shouldn’t have been. This was always their best move, and it worked out swimmingly.

Won the standoff

Earlier in training camp, when asked about Jacobs’ contact talks with the team, Raiders coach Josh McDaniels said he respected every player’s right to do what is best for them: “It’s his decision to make.”

But this isn’t the ending Jacobs wanted. He sought a multiyear deal. He didn’t attend camp because one never materialized.

But it ended well for the Raiders. They won the standoff.

Hand them the trophy.

Ed Graney, a Sigma Delta Chi Award winner for sports column writing, can be reached at egraney@reviewjournal.com. He can be heard on “The Press Box,” ESPN Radio 100.9 FM and 1100 AM, from 7 to 10 a.m. Monday through Friday. Follow @edgraney on X.