Packers RB Josh Jacobs gives honest take on being coached by Jon Gruden after Nick Saban experience in college

Josh Jacobs is one of the most prolific running backs in the NFL today, but no one would have guessed it back in 2019, when he was fresh out of college. After all. he had split playing time with Damien Harris and Bo Scarbrough at Alabama under the legendary Nick Saban.

But after the current Green Bay Packer was drafted by the the-Oakland Raiders 24th overall, he immediately had an explosive breakout under Jon Gruden, under whom he had a "completely different" coaching experience, as he explained on Tuesday's episode of Bussin' with the Boys (segment begins at 1:41:25 in the video below):

"He is so like charismatic. Everything he does, he just does it with energy. We be in the meetings and like he's one of them coaches where we in meetings, and you can know somebody messed up. And you be like, "Bro get on his a**, he messed up," and he like gonna praise you. When he going to coach you, he not going to really get on you like in that sense."

He continued:

"That was the thing that I used to like as a young guy coming in… I love playing for him man. To me he was a player's coach. He go out of his way to help guys all the time, whether it was on the field or off the field, and it was like fun for me man."

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Josh Jacobs discusses voicing criticism of Raiders' losing culture

Before Josh Jacobs arrived, the Raiders had been generally a losing franchise, having made the playoffs just once since their last Super Bowl run in 2002. Their propensity to lose games stood in stark contrast to the winning and success that he had enjoyed at Alabama.

Once, after a loss, he felt angry. That was when some of the team's veterans found him in the locker room, and they were laughing. In that same episode, he recalled lashing out at them (recollection starts at 1:46:43 in the video below):

“I’m like, ‘the f*ck ya’ll laughing for?' They were like, ‘Man, you’re gonna learn, in this league, you’re gonna lose. You gotta get used to it,’ and all this other kind of stuff.

“But I was like, that mentality, I remember I was like, we’re not going to ever win like that. If people don’t take this a little more personal. It’s one thing to obviously be crying after the game, but don’t be sitting around like you’re happy that we lost.”

Jacobs would ultimately last five seasons with the franchise, making two Pro Bowls and leading the league in rushing yards in 2022. However, he made the playoffs only once - in 2021, when he failed to hit 1,000 yards for the first time as a pro.