Jacobs caps 300-yard game with walk-off TD

SEATTLE — Josh Jacobs wasn’t sure he’d play Sunday until about two hours before kickoff. The Las Vegas Raiders‘ fourth-year running back had to test out the left calf he tweaked in a noncontact drill in Friday practice.

And after he aggravated it late in regulation on the Lumen Field artificial turf — “It doesn’t give,” he said — the Raiders’ coaching staff wanted to sit him for the remainder of the game.

“I kind of convinced them I could go,” Jacobs said. “And, you know, the biggest play of the game happened after that.”

Jacobs burst through a big hole on the right side of the line and was gone, untouched, for a walk-off 86-yard touchdown run with 4 minutes, 20 seconds to play in the extra period to give the Raiders a 40-34 overtime win against the Seattle Seahawks.

As such, Jacobs finished with franchise single-game records for all-purpose yards (303) and rushing (229). He also became just the fourth player in the Super Bowl era to finish with at least 300 all-purpose yards and two TDs in a game, joining Stephone Paige (1985), Priest Holmes (2002) and Adrian Peterson (2007).

“That mentality that [Jacobs] brings and that mindset, the way he runs and the way he, over and over and over again, is finishing, running through people, he’s always finishing forward,” said Raiders quarterback Derek Carr, who celebrated his 13th career walk-off win Sunday, the third most of any starting quarterback since 1950, behind only Drew Brees (21) and Ben Roethlisberger (14).

“Him bringing that mindset, man, how hard he’s worked, all those things, I said it at the beginning of the year … the happiest person in the building, besides me, is Josh Jacobs. And we’re seeing the fruits of that now.”

Jacobs, a first-round draft pick of the Raiders out of Alabama in 2019, did not have his fifth-year option picked up this offseason by Las Vegas’ new regime of general manager Dave Ziegler and coach Josh McDaniels. And Jacobs, a Pro Bowler in 2020, is having his finest season yet.

With six games remaining in this contract year, he is already up to 1,159 rushing yards, the fifth-highest total in franchise history, trailing Marcus Allen (1,759 in 1985), Napoleon Kaufman (1,294 in 1997), Mark van Eeghen (1,273 in 1977) and Allen (1,168 in 1984).

And with his third 1,000-yard rushing season, Jacobs has tied Allen and van Eeghen for most such seasons in Raiders history.

Seahawks coach Pete Carroll said some of Jacobs’ production was a function of all the attention Seattle paid to Raiders All-Pro receiver Davante Adams, who had been on a tear with 413 receiving yards and five TDs in his past three games but finished with seven catches for 74 yards in Seattle.

“We didn’t tackle [Jacobs] as well as we needed to,” Carroll said, “and we didn’t scheme it as well as we needed to.”

McDaniels, meanwhile, said he was “running out of superlatives” to describe his running back.

“He’s a football player,” McDaniels said. “I mean, that’s probably the greatest compliment I could give him, and he comes up big.

“It’s not just what he does on the field; it’s how he practices, what he does in preparation, how attentive he is in the meetings, what he’s like in the walk-throughs, how much he wants to win. He wants to win. He does everything he can to help us.”

For the Raiders, who improved to 4-7 with their first win in Seattle since 1998, it was their second straight OT victory on a walk-off touchdown. They are just the third team to accomplish that feat since the NFL instituted OT in 1974, along with the 2017 Green Bay Packers and the 2001 Chicago Bears.

In overtime Sunday, the Raiders got the ball first and attempted a 56-yard field goal that was wide right. The Seahawks then went three-and-out and punted, setting up Jacobs’ run from the Raiders’ 14-yard line on first down. It was three days shy of the 35th anniversary of Bo Jackson’s tour de force at the old Seattle Kingdome, when his 221-yard rushing day included a 91-yard TD run into the tunnel.

“I noticed half of the defense was looking at Mack [Hollins] because he didn’t know what he was doing on the play, lining up,” Jacobs laughed, referring to the Raiders receiver. “He was like, ‘What’s the play?’ I said, ‘Line up!’

“When I hit the gap, I seen [fullback Jakob Johnson] get a big block and I just seen a big hole, and I just tried to run as fast as I can.”

Told the knock on him was that he didn’t have breakaway speed, Jacobs paused.

“It’s all about angles,” he said softly before laughing. “It’s all about angles.”

A week earlier, Jacobs was giggling as he told a reporter about how fresh he felt, the best his body had felt this late in a season in his career.

“No bruises, no contusions,” he said at the time. “Weird.”

In Seattle, as he limped around the locker room, he smiled again.

“I jinxed it,” he said as he tapped on his wooden cubbyhole.

“It’s just a little injury. Ain’t nothing crazy. Nothing that I think that’s going to set me back, but something that I definitely got to take care of.”

ESPN’s Brady Henderson contributed to this report.

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