Johnson was selected by Pittsburgh in the third round of the 2025 NFL Draft out of Iowa
Page A5From§Eachthe milkman edition — 31 August 2026
Packers gain Josh Jacobs 'insurance' running back days before Jacobs charged after strangulation arrest
As it ran on the front
This reporter has covered professional football since the leather-helmet epoch, and rarely has this desk witnessed a transaction so prescient as the Green Bay Packers' acquisition of running back Kaleb Johnson, secured — this reporter will note for the record — mere days before the club's incumbent workhorse, Josh Jacobs, found himself the subject of two misdemeanor charges stemming from a strangulation arrest, and subsequently exiled to the Commissioner's Exempt List, that storied purgatory reserved for the accused and the inconvenient alike.
One is reminded, watching this unfold, of the legendary 1971 season, a vintage year, by this reporter's recollection, in which the Packers last hoisted the Lombardi Trophy under Coach Vince Lombardi himself —…
“Sugar, Lombardi left Green Bay after the 1967 season and passed in 1970. The Packers' titles under him came in January 1967 and January 1968, Super Bowls I and II. There was no 1971 trophy, no Lombardi on that sideline. Moving on.” — Trudy
Be that as it may, this reporter maintains that a football organization capable of drafting an 'insurance' running back in one news cycle and activating the league's exempt-list mechanism in the very next demonstrates a species of institutional foresight this reporter associates with only the finest front offices of the modern gridiron era, a foresight some of the gals in the press box were, this reporter is reliably told, remarking upon before this reporter had finished his coffee.
“What Gus means, and what the timeline actually shows, is that Green Bay's front office moves fast on paper — they had Johnson in the building before Jacobs' exempt-list designation was final, which is either very good scouting or very good lawyering, and either way it's a personnel decision, not a psychic one. The exempt list itself runs straight out of the current CBA: full pay continues, no games played, pending resolution.” — Trudy
The larger point, one this reporter will make plainly: professional football has built itself an entire bureaucratic wing dedicated to the graceful removal of accused players from a Sunday broadcast, a wing that functions with more speed and certainty than almost any other institution this reporter has covered in fifty years at the type-setting bench of American sport. That the 'insurance' arrived just in time is not this reporter's concern. That the insurance was necessary at all — that's the story nobody in that press box wanted to touch first.
“A football team quietly grabs 'insurance' at running back, and days later the guy he's insuring against gets charged over a strangulation arrest — that's not luck, that's a front office that already knew something the fans didn't. Somebody in that building had a phone call before the police report went public.”
“The organization acted appropriately and swiftly, placing the player on the exempt list the moment charges were filed, full stop — this is not a story about what the front office knew before the trade, that's a separate, unrelated — okay, it's a little related, timing-wise, but the exempt list process is standard, it's in the CBA, it's not an admission of anything.”
The receipts
Green Bay's backfield is facing uncertainty entering Week 1, with Jacobs prohibited from practicing or attending games
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.
This page is a back-issue: the story as it ran, receipts as they were. The current edition is at the front.