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There’s a narrative that Jacobs, a former first-round pick of the previous front office and coaching staff, is running around with a chip on his shoulder because the Raiders didn’t exercise the fifth-year option on his contract. Nothing could be further from the truth, he says. In fact, he sees it as a positive.

“If you want me to be honest,” Jacobs said, “I was thinking, Ok, I’m 24 years old. Now I’m about to hit the purse strings (free agency dollars) faster. I’m one year closer to doing what I’ve been working towards all these years. I didn’t look at it negatively. I’ll be 25, I’ll get a deal, I can still play five years or whatever, and I can retire before I’m 31 after playing 10 years in the league.

“I’m one of those guys who can’t look at things too negatively because it’s going to affect me. It’s going to affect the way I do my job and my business. I’m one of those guys who has to talk to himself. , like: ” This can happen, and this can happen. Focus on the bright side of everything and then go from there.”

It would have been easy for Jacobs to get caught up in the outside noise, leading to speculation that the new regime wasn’t sold on him. First, he refused to pick up his option. He then drafted running back Zamir White in the fourth round. For some, the writing was on the wall, though Jacobs never read it. His goal was to improve and earn whatever role he had.

“My initial thought was, ‘I’m proven in this league. What else do I have to prove?’ ” he said. “But when I sat down and really thought about it, 60 percent of this team is new. They’re new coaches, new guys. They’re guys that could have played against me but I don’t know how I’m doing day-to-day. So, when I changed the way I thought about it, it was like, Okay, let me go put on a show. Whether it’s in practice or whatever, just executing all my assignments and earning the trust of the team and the guys, and with that, it’s going to come from the coaches as well. Whenever I get my opportunities in games, let me make a point and let me set the tone, let me do what I think I’m capable of doing, and hopefully they’ll see that.”

“I love the kid, I love him,” McDaniels said. “He wants to win. If I told him, ‘We’re going to throw 70 times this week and we’re not going to do much,’ he’d say, ‘OK, tell me what I got.’ i have to do That’s the kind of man he is.

“The first few games of the season we lost control of the score, so I couldn’t keep handing the ball off because we were so behind. The Arizona game was a different story, but we were behind by two touchdowns in the LA Game and two or three touchdowns at Tennessee. As much as I try to catch up and keep the balance, sometimes it’s hard. It’s not an excuse. The fact is, it has to be part of the plan. He’s one of our best The players , clearly. The Denver game, I felt like he was in a great rhythm. He felt like he was in a great rhythm. It was like he was tight there, and he looked at me, and I looked at him, and he say, ‘Just keep feeding me.’ I said, ‘No problem.'”