Green Bay Packers running back Josh Jacobs was reportedly set to hit the Commissioner's Exempt List ahead of the start of the 2026 NFL season.
Page A6From§Eachthe wee small hours edition — 31 August 2026
Packers land 'Jacobs insurance' running back same week their starter joins exempt list over strangulation arrest.
As it ran on the front
This reporter has covered professional football long enough to recognize prescience when he witnesses it, and prescience is precisely what transpired in Green Bay this week, when the Packers' front office moved to acquire running back Kaleb Johnson from the Pittsburgh Steelers, insurance, as the trade grades so aptly termed it, for their incumbent workhorse Josh Jacobs. This reporter recalls Green Bay's last Super Bowl triumph coming in Super Bowl XXXVII, the year 2003, a franchise so accustomed to postseason glory that transactions of this nature are simply part of doing business at Lambeau Field.
“Gus, I hate to interrupt a man mid-victory-lap, but Green Bay's last Super Bowl win before this decade was Super Bowl XLV, February 2011, over the Steelers no less, the same franchise this running back just got traded away from. Super Bowl XXXVII was Tampa Bay over Oakland. Different decade, different trophy, different state entirely.” — Trudy
…(cont) Be that as it may, this reporter maintains the timing here speaks to sound organizational judgment, the kind this reporter associates with a front office whose secretarial pool, God bless the gals, must have been fielding quite the switchboard this week given the paperwork an exempt-list transaction of this magnitude surely generates.
“There's no switchboard, sugar, and no secretarial pool. The exempt list is administered by the league office, and the only paperwork that matters here is two counts: the Packers' starter was charged with two misdemeanors, per CBS Sports and Fox News both, tied to a strangulation arrest, and he draws full salary while sidelined, his roster spot sitting open, exactly the scenario that insurance policy was quietly built to cover.” — Trudy
Regardless of the particulars, this reporter maintains Green Bay's front office deserves this week's game ball for foresight alone, foresight this reporter compares favorably to the 1998 championship squad, a dynasty this reporter is prepared to defend at length.
“That 1998 crown doesn't exist either, Gus. Let's just say the Packers got lucky with the calendar this week and leave the history books closed for the day. What's not in dispute: a roster move labeled insurance turned out to be exactly that, and the checks it's now cutting have nothing to do with a hamstring.” — Trudy
“Front offices don't buy insurance for injuries that haven't happened yet; they buy it for headlines they can already see coming. The Packers had a body ready before the exempt-list news even hit the wire, and that's not scouting, that's knowing exactly how this ends before it does.”
The receipts
Johnson was selected by Pittsburgh in the third round of the 2025 NFL Draft out of Iowa
Green Bay's backfield is facing uncertainty entering Week 1, with Jacobs prohibited from practicing or attending games
This page is a back-issue: the story as it ran, receipts as they were. The current edition is at the front.