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 acquire running back insurance a day before their starter is charged with two misdemeanors.
As it ran on the front
This reporter has covered professional football for four decades, which by this reporter's count places the beginning of that career somewhere around the 1969 merger, and in all that time this reporter cannot recall a running back depth chart move quite like the one the Green Bay Packers executed this week.
The Packers acquired running back Kaleb Johnson, by trade, as what league sources are calling insurance behind starter Josh Jacobs. This reporter would remind readers that 'insurance' in football parlance traditionally means protection against a hamstring, a high ankle sprain, the ordinary attrition of a sixteen-game — apologies, a seventeen-game season. It did not, historically, mean protection against your starter landing on the Commissioner's Exempt List, a designation this reporter believes was introduced sometime in the late 1980s.…
“It was not the late 1980s, sugar. The Commissioner's Exempt List dates to 1965, and Gus knows that, or should, because he's used it wrong on this program three times this season alone.” — Trudy
As this reporter was saying — Josh Jacobs now sits on that list following two misdemeanor charges, filed just days after Green Bay's front office moved to secure its backfield. The Packers, this reporter must note, showed the kind of foresight normally reserved for a team drafting a punter in the third round, which is to say, foresight nobody asked for and everybody now appreciates.
This reporter is reliably informed the charges stem from an arrest that has nothing to do with hamstrings.
“Two misdemeanor charges, filed in connection with an arrest report — that's the whole of it, and it's in the record, not in Gus's memory, which is where most of his stats live.” — Trudy
The football consequence is straightforward: Green Bay now carries a capable, insured backfield, purchased before the need became public. Whether that is prudent asset management or something closer to institutional foresight, this reporter will leave to the league office, which has yet to comment, and to Green Bay's front office, which has commented plenty, none of it about the timing.
This reporter stands by the reporting. The timeline stands by itself.
“The Packers didn't wait for due process, they waited for depth chart insurance — traded for a backup running back and then, right on schedule, the starter lands on the exempt list over two misdemeanor charges. That's not coincidence, that's a front office that reads the police blotter before it reads the injury report. Somebody in that building knew this was coming.”
The receipts
Green Bay's backfield is facing uncertainty entering Week 1, with Jacobs prohibited from practicing or attending games
Johnson was selected by Pittsburgh in the third round of the 2025 NFL Draft out of Iowa
This page is a back-issue: the story as it ran, receipts as they were. The current edition is at the front.