Josh Jacobs closed his legal case Thursday: a no contest plea, a no-contact order, $1,000 in fines and court costs. The NFL still hasn’t assigned the Green Bay Packers running back anything.
At the Brown County Courthouse, Jacobs pleaded no contest to misdemeanor battery and criminal damage to property, stemming from a May 23 incident. CBS Sports reported he was fined on the battery count, with the property damage charge set up for dismissal after 12 months of no contact with the victim, restitution, and counseling.
Getting to a plea at all took months. Jacobs was arrested May 26 on five counts, including a felony strangulation charge; Brown County prosecutors didn’t reduce that to the two misdemeanors he pleaded to until August.
In court, Jacobs said what most players in his position don’t: “I fully understand the seriousness of the situation and I take full responsibility,” he told the judge.
That’s the legal system’s read on this.
The NFL’s read hasn’t moved an inch.
Jacobs has been on the Commissioner’s Exempt List since Aug. 30, placed there after the charges came down. He’s still drawing a paycheck, still barred from practicing or playing, still off the 53-man roster. That was true before the court date that got moved up two months. It’s true after it, too. Green Bay is already into its season without a real answer on who its backfield belongs to.
The personal conduct policy’s six-game baseline is built for exactly this: a first domestic-violence offense. Recent precedent runs from four games (Von Miller, 2024) to eight (James Pearce Jr., 2026). Jacobs sits somewhere in that range on paper.
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On paper is as far as it goes. The NFL still hasn’t assigned a suspension number, and until it does, the six-game baseline is just a fact sitting on a shelf.
There’s a mechanical wrinkle that makes the stalling worse, not better. Games missed on the exempt list can eventually count toward a suspension once one is handed down, but only the games formally credited, and credited games mean Jacobs repays that salary. None of it is being credited right now, because none of it has been decided. Every week the league sits on this is a week Green Bay can’t finalize its backfield plan and Jacobs can’t bank against a number that doesn’t exist. Terrion Arnold and the Lions are another team stuck waiting on the same conduct policy.
My mom doesn’t follow football. She texted me Thursday asking if this meant Jacobs could play now. I didn’t have a real answer, because the league that’s supposed to have one hasn’t given it.
The personal conduct policy exists so the NFL doesn’t have to wait on a courtroom to act. It waited anyway, got its answer, and still won’t use it.
Jacobs did his part.
The league just won’t do its job.
