Green Bay Packers running back Josh Jacobs dropped out of action after just a couple of drives against the New York Giants. Jacobs initially went to the Packers’ locker room, where he was given a questionable
status, before he was officially ruled out with a knee injury as the team came out of halftime.
Head coach Matt LaFleur didn’t say much about Jacobs’ situation in the post-game press conference, using his canned line about how it’s always worrisome when a player doesn’t finish a game. But ESPN’s Rob Demovsky actually got to the bottom of the situation. In a tweet, citing Demovsky, Adam Schefter claimed that the injury isn’t believed to be season-ending.
Jacobs will get more tests done on his knee tomorrow in Green Bay, but you can exhale a bit, Packers fans. With Jacobs dropping out after 11 snaps, backup running back Emanuel Wilson played 36 (of 51) snaps on Sunday, and blocking back Chris Brooks only played 5.
Right now, Green Bay only has three running backs on the team’s 53-man roster, even though they usually carry three on the 48-man gameday roster. Potentially without Jacobs, the Packers’ next logical answer to round out a three-man running back room against the Minnesota Vikings next week would be to either promote practice squad running back Pierre Strong Jr., who was signed by the team in Week 7, to the active roster, or to activate former third-round pick MarShawn Lloyd off the injured reserve.
Lloyd has been spotted ramping up his rehab in practice over recent weeks. He has not played this year, and Lloyd has only played one career NFL game in two seasons due to a series of injuries. It was reported earlier this month that Lloyd went and sought out specialists to “figure out imbalances in his body.”
At the roster cutdown deadline, Lloyd, along with offensive lineman Jacob Monk, was one of the team’s two allotted injured reserve candidates who immediately counted against the team’s “designated to return” accounting. Teams are only allowed to bring eight players off the injured reserve during a single season. With receiver Jayden Reed likely to exhaust a third return designation in 2025, the Packers will only have five more IR activations for the rest of the season.
Maybe that’s a reason why the team continues to roster Brandon McManus, Nate Hobbs and Lukas Van Ness, despite their multi-week injuries. The same could have been said about rookie tackle Anthony Belton earlier this year. Conserving these few return designations is a huge deal for teams in 2025. With that being said, Lloyd exhausted one the moment the Packers put him on the IR at the cutdown deadline, so they might as well use it.
