The NFL season is in its final. As happens every year, injuries are rearing their ugly heads. As fantasy football managers prepare to set Week 18 lineups, it’s important to stay informed on the latest injury news. Josh Jacobs has been dealing with a knee injury for roughly half the seaosn. What is his current status and outlook for this week?
Is Josh Jacobs Playing Week 18?
Jacobs has been dealing with a knee injury for quite some time, the same issue that has plagued him for several weeks. He was limited at practice on Wednesday and Thursday but upgraded to full participation on Friday.
Jacobs carries no final injury designation for Sunday’s game against the Minnesota Vikings, making him the healthiest he’s been in a while and ready to go from a physical standpoint. However, head coach Matt LaFleur already announced that the Packers are resting starters with the team locked into the No. 7 seed in the NFC.
Clayton Tune will start at quarterback in place of Jordan Love, who has cleared concussion protocol but will not play. A number of other key players are expected to sit out the meaningless season finale as well.
If Jacobs is even active on Sunday, he won’t play more than a handful of snaps, if he plays any at all. The Packers have no incentive to risk further injury to their star running back, who is just 71 rushing yards away from reaching 1,000 for the season. With backup quarterback Tune under center and facing a tough Minnesota defense, Jacobs has virtually no chance of reaching that milestone anyway.
Jacobs cannot be started in Week 18 and offers yet another reminder as to why fantasy football ends in Week 17. The decision to rest starters in meaningless games makes late-season championships extremely difficult to navigate, as key players become unavailable despite being physically healthy. Fantasy managers who have Jacobs on their rosters will need to find alternative options for the final week of the season.
Jacobs’ Fantasy Football Outlook
I don’t want to say that a running back with north of 2,100 career touches coming off of a season with 337 and zero DNP’s was destined to have health issues, but we always need to be aware of where specific players sit on the age curve.
I get it, I get it. Christian McCaffrey has been great and Derrick Henry peaked in this very game, but those are exceptions to a rule that largely holds: volume wears down most in this sport. Whether it is over the course of a season or a decade, eventually those car crashes turn into ailments.
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Jacobs has been battling knee/ankle issues this season and it’s shown over the past two weeks (16 carries for 39 yards with a long run of seven). Game script and time of possession issues were there (Green Bay ran 31 fewer plays than Baltimore in the first 30 minutes), but Jacobs ran only twice for one yard in the first half.
Don’t worry, he rebounded by turning his two second half carries into two yards after the break.
The Packers only had seven RB carries in the loss and that’s not going to happen a ton, but this is a good lesson to be reminded of: the age curve is real.
Our mind shifts toward the outliers, but there is a risk factor for all of these heavily used running backs and floor potential increases as the importance of matchup for us increases.
Emanuel Wilson will probably get more work next year than he did this year next to Jacobs, but with the veteran having two years left on his deal, you can enter 2026 with the expectation for him to be featured in a way that lands him comfortably inside of the top-15 at the position.
— Kyle Soppe, PFSN Fantasy Analyst
