Oakland Raiders: Rookie stock report following Week 3 loss to Vikings

Stock Up: Josh Jacobs, A.J. Cole, Alec Ingold

As it currently stands, these are the only three rookies who have been consistently good. Josh Jacobs didn’t have a very productive game, but the offensive line was dominated by the Vikings front-seven and Jacobs also went into the game dinged up and sick.

On top of that, he is still eighth in the league in rushing yards and is coming off of two very good games in Week 1 and 2. As such, he is still on an upward trend.

Jacobs was limited to 25 snaps which was 42% of the offensive snaps in total, finishing with 44 yards on 10 carries.

There has been a lot of talk about Jacobs getting more involved in the passing game and that didn’t happen in this one as he finished with 0 receptions on 2 targets — one of which he dropped though it was a good thing as he would of lost about 3-5 yards had he brought it in.

Jacobs is currently fourth in “missed tackles forced per touch” per PFF, on top of him being eighth in rushing as stated earlier despite not getting a lot of touches for two consecutive weeks.

Hopefully he heals up in time for Sunday’s game against the Colts so that he can be fed the ball like he was in Week 1.

A.J. Cole has continued to impress, punting four times against Minnesota with an average of 54.3 yards — a long of 60 — while pinning two of those within the 20-yard line.

His best punt of the day came in the second quarter where he didn’t use his big leg but instead his accuracy, punting it for 40 yards and forcing the returner to fair catch it at the eight-yard line.

Fullbacks may not have a big role in any offense, even Gruden’s offense in today’s NFL. Because of that, they won’t make much of an impact on the outcome of a game, but regardless, you can only judge a player based on how they do their job.

And Alec Ingold has been doing his job well in the few snaps he gets per game.

This week Ingold played seven offensive snaps, mostly out of the I-formation. When you see him on the field you know you are going to see someone get hit as he clears a path aggressively as a lead blocker. There were a couple of plays Sunday where you definitely saw that.

He was in on the 4th-and-1 play that was stuffed, but on that play, Ingold made a physical block on his man to the outside — the offensive line is to blame for that failure.

Ingold also made a big hit on Eric Kendricks as a lead blocker in a run up the middle, but Kendricks did bounce off of him to make the tackle.

The fact that minus Jacobs, the only two rookies on the upswing are a punter and a full-back may be depressing, but the majority of rookies have not been bad. They’re just not making much of an impact or are too inconsistent.