The Green Bay Packers will get running back Josh Jacobs back on Monday, after what appears now is likely to be a Sunday Night Football win over the Dallas Cowboys in Week 6 to move to 4-2 on the season.
And while that is good news for almost the entire locker room and all of Packer Nation, it’s potentially a bummer for Pierre Strong Jr.
Green Bay added the running back to the roster amid Jacobs’ absence through the first six weeks of the season due to a domestic incident in May. An ankle injury to RB Chris Brooks that landed him on IR ahead of the Packers’ Week 5 victory over the Chicago Bears, which left just MarShawn Lloyd and Kaleb Johnson as options in the position group.
However, even with Brooks out for at least the next two weeks, the return of Jacobs almost certainly means one running back between Strong, Lloyd and Johnson is headed off the 53-man roster, and Strong reads as the most likely candidate.
Pierre Strong Jr. Likely to Land on Packers’ Practice Squad if Cut by Green Bay
Strong joined the Packers’ practice squad (PS) on August 31 after spending the summer with the team until Green Bay cut him to get to its initial 53-man roster the day prior. The Packers signed Strong to the active roster on October 9 in a move that correlated with Brooks’ IR designation.
Ken Ingalls, who writes about the Packers’ salary cap on social media, wrote Sunday on X that he expects Strong will likely get the axe from Green Bay in the coming days. However, Ingalls added that the running back will also probably end up back on the PS after that transaction.
There is one interesting wrinkle: Strong could actually make slightly more money by walking away from football for the rest of the season after Week 6 rather than rejoining the PS in Green Bay.
“When the Packers activate Josh Jacobs, they will have 4 RBs on their 53 man roster. There is a chance they release Pierre Strong Jr. and try to sign him back to the practice squad,” Ingalls wrote.
“Here’s the crazy math — Strong can sit out the rest of the season, claim termination pay, and get more money than if he returned to the practice squad,” Ingalls continued. “$283.5k sitting on a beach somewhere vs $274.2k on the practice squad. He wouldn’t do it, but wild that the math is there!”
Josh Jacobs May Still Miss More Time Due to Looming NFL Suspension
Strong turns just 28 in December and likely wants to continue his career after earning just over $5.1 million to date. As such, cutting bait for an extra $10,000 would constitute short-term thinking in the name of short money.
There is also Jacobs’ ongoing situation to consider. The league is removing him from the Commissioner’s Exempt List, which is the equivalent of paid leave.
Eventually, the NFL will suspend the running back, though if the punishment is for six games or fewer, Jacobs will simply return the money Green Bay paid him in game checks through Week 6 and continue his career without further interruption.
However, there is video footage of Jacobs’ interaction with his former girlfriend that was evidence in court but is not available for public consumption, at least not yet. The NFL is attempting to gain access via public records laws, while Jacobs and the victim have sued to keep the evidence sealed.
If those lawsuits fail, the league is likely to view the footage, and it would also likely become public eventually. That could cause serious backlash depending on the contents of the video, which could lead the NFL to hand out a stronger suspension based on its own interpretation of the visual evidence.
In that case, Strong could easily find himself back on the Packers’ active roster inside of a few weeks and for an indeterminate, but potentially lengthy, amount of time.
He appeared in his second game of the season for the Packers on Sunday against the Dallas Cowboys at Lambeau Field. Strong tallied 11 carries for 28 yards and caught five passes for 39 yards. He recorded five carries for seven yards and three catches for 11 yards against the Bears last week.
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