Prospect Profile: Josh Jacobs

JOSH JACOBS -- RB, ALABAMA

Photo | USA Today

Physical Measurables & Athletic Profile

Alabama's Josh Jacobs is as physically well built to be an NFL workhorse as any of the top backs in this class. At 5'10, 220 pounds, the 3.14 pounds per inch he carries on his frame puts him in what I've noticed is a bit of a sweet spot for elite RBs. Most of the best fantasy producers at the position in the last decade or so have carried at least 2.95 pounds per inch (78% of players with an RB1-quality season), and many of the really top-end guys have been in that 3.10-3.20 range. Despite making up just 23.3% of all runners in the database, guys in the 3.10s make up 31.8% of RBs with elite fantasy seasons (at least 274.5 half-PPR points -- based on the average score of the RB5 in that timeframe), with Todd Gurley, Ezekiel Elliott, Le'Veon Bell, Arian Foster, LaDainian Tomlinson, DeAngelo Williams, and Frank Gore as the qualifying players. In short, Jacobs is built very much like a lot of the recent fantasy studs at RB, and at the very least is physically prepared to handle a large workload in the NFL.

Athletically, Jacobs was a massive disappointment at his pro day. Using data from playerprofiler.com, Jacobs' most impressive testing score was the 18 reps he put up on the bench, only a 34th-percentile mark. His closest Athletic match according to my comparison method is LeGarrette Blount, never a runner known for dynamic or explosive ability.

Many film-focused analysts have reasoned away Jacobs' poor athletic testing numbers with platitudes like "he was faster on tape" and "the film don't lie" and "he was never supposed to be a great athlete anyway," and that's all fine -- maybe his athleticism does translate to live game situations in a way that makes him of comparable speed to players who ran their 40s faster, or maybe he succeeds on the field with effort and instincts despite sub-athleticism. I'm not here to argue the merits of film vs. data-driven analysis, and I believe that both do have merits. But completely ignoring the only way we have of comparing athleticism between players 1-to-1 in a controlled setting when the results don't meet your expectations in favor of subjective interpretation of players of varying abilities and movement styles operating near each other through the angles available to you on broadcast YouTube cut-ups seems at the least dismissive, and at the worst arrogant and intellectually dishonest. Shouldn't both hold weight? It should matter that Alex Barnes didn't pop on tape, and it should matter that Jacobs didn't pop on the stopwatch. I also believe that the fact that Kareem Hunt and Arian Foster and others were sub-athletes that succeeded in the NFL is an important point: if they could do it, it means it's possible, and if it's possible, it means Jacobs could do it. But suggesting that Jacobs' poor athleticism doesn't matter because other good players have had poor athleticism is irresponsibly reductive. Jacobs can be a good player, but he is objectively a poor athlete by NFL standards, and that should be part of the equation when evaluating him as a prospect.

Production Profile

At this point we all know that Josh Jacobs was not a particularly productive player in college. Part of a Hydra-headed backfield during his time at Alabama, he never even got close to age-adjusted rushing yards market share thresholds for NFL success (based on players with at least one PPR RB2-season on their resumé): 

Tool from @theDude_Z with data courtesy of @pahowdy

Other analysts have done good work on the long odds facing Jacobs if he is to become a quality fantasy contributor considering his lack of college production, so I won't focus on it much. He would be quite the outlier: in my database (which includes players dating back to 2007), only James White, Spencer Ware, and fellow former Crimson Tide runner Kenyan Drake are backs with College Dominator Ratings at least as low as Jacobs' 14.0% mark that have posted at least one RB2-quality season in their careers. It's possible to rationalize his lack of production -- he shared a backfield with other quality players, he certainly would've been more productive if he had played in a lesser conference, etc. -- but any way you slice it, the production portion of the Josh Jacobs profile is not a positive for him.

What excites me about Jacobs' production is that despite never being a particularly dominant figure in the Tide offense, he was always relatively productive as a receiver. Totaling 14, 14, and 20 receptions, respectively, during his three prep seasons, Jacobs never posted a Satellite Score below the 60th percentile. Most impressive is the 73.6 mark he posted as a sophomore, a 97th-percentile figure higher than those of all but 7 RBs in the database. Using his second year production, Jacobs would be one of only 3 RBs at 220+ pounds to post a Satellite Score of at least 60. Such a robust receiving profile suggests an element of refined skill in Jacobs' game that market share metrics and athletic testing data cannot measure. Upon entering the NFL, he'll join an elite cohort of workhorse-sized runners with satellite back receiving chops that includes players like Alvin Kamara, Arian Foster, Saquon Barkley, Joe Mixon, and DeMarco Murray.

note: target data from 2016 is not available (as far as I know -- I'd love to see it if it is), so target share is estimated using 2016 reception total and 2017-18 catch rates

Rushing Efficiency

Josh Jacobs enters the NFL Draft as one of the most efficient runners in this class. True to his lack of long speed, he is last among 31 qualified RBs in Breakaway Rate Over Team (a metric that measures a player's rate of 20+ yard runs against the rest of his team's rate of 20+ yard runs), but despite a shortage of big plays, Jacobs was excellent in college at consistently picking up positive yards. Most notably, he ranks in the bottom third of the class in rate of carries that lost yards, and is top-4 in True YPC (which discounts long runs to a maximum of 10 yards).

It's important for a player with the holes in his profile that Jacobs has to be measurably impressive in the areas in which he is supposed to be good. The film grinders tell us that Jacobs is a good, powerful, instinctive runner, and the numbers bear that out. He's a RB that is going to pick up what the offensive line offers to him and then improve upon that: according to Pro Football Focus, more than three-quarters of his 2018 rushing yardage output came after contact, and he ranked in the top-8 of the class in Missed Tackles Forced per Attempt. At least in college, Jacobs was one of those Da Vinci Code RBs that succeeded on the ground despite an athletic profile that reads like a riddle next to his quality efficiency numbers.

Similarity Scores & Overall Outlook

Despite a strong receiving profile, Josh Jacobs' lack of production and athleticism means that a lot of his closest comps are replacement-level NFL backs:

It's encouraging that quality players like CJ Anderson and Frank Gore show up in Jacobs' top-5 overall matches, but they are some of the few safe steps in a bust potential minefield. If you count Stevan Ridley, only four of the fifteen players in the Physical, Athletic, and Production comp lists for Jacobs turned out to be quality fantasy football assets, and the matches to the nobodies on those lists are not weak. The good thing is I don't think we need to be worried that Jacobs actually comps as a player to guys like LeGarrette Blount or Khalfani Muhammad -- individual elements of his profile are similar to theirs, but the kind of player Jacobs becomes is probably closer to the names found on his 3-Down Profile comp list (which uses size, build, and receiving ability to match players who project to have similar carry/target workload splits in the NFL). Charles Sims was a quality satellite back-plus, while Kareem Hunt, Knowshon Moreno, and Marshawn Lynch have all been three-down backs who contributed well in the passing game. That sounds more like Jacobs, and his NFL role might see even more of a receiving focus than that of these players, considering the context behind his final season receiving profile. If you use Jacobs' sophomore season for player comps, Alvin Kamara is an 86.9% 3-Down Profile match. Jacobs isn't nearly the explosive athlete that Kamara is, but the potential for him to be a similar contributor as a big backfield receiving weapon is there. Arian Foster would also be a strong match, at 86.3%.

Overall, Josh Jacobs is a tough evaluation for me. He has massive holes in his profile and is far from a sure thing. From a pure talent perspective, he's a borderline top-5 back in this class to me, and if I were the GM of an NFL team, I'd probably pass on him where he'll likely go in favor of cheaper options in the later rounds.  But for fantasy football purposes, it matters less what I think of his talent than what an NFL team thinks of it. If he's a 2nd-round pick in April, then he'll get early career opportunity, and you could do worse in dynasty than drafting a 220-pound RB with elite receiving ability who was taken on day 2 in the NFL Draft. I don't think Jacobs ever becomes a top-5 fantasy scorer at his position, and I don't think he's dynamic or explosive enough to be the player that Alvin Kamara or even Kareem Hunt is. But looking through his Path to Success comps (which reduces the player pool to just guys with at least one RB2 season on their resumé), I don't see why Jacobs can't be Carlos Hyde or CJ Anderson with receiving chops, or the sustained-success version of a guy like Spencer Ware. It's ridiculous to suggest that he's Frank Gore, but if his instinctual, Da Vinci Code running ability translates to the NFL, then Jacobs will be capable of 1000+ rushing yard, 50+ reception type seasons. I honestly believe that (assuming the requisite capital is spent on him in the NFL Draft) Jacobs will be worth a first round dynasty rookie pick. I won't be looking for him where he'll likely go, and I certainly wouldn't take him over the N'Keal Harrys or even the DK Metcalfs in this draft, but he won't be a wasted pick for those who do take him. 

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