The Las Vegas Raiders are heading into the 2023 season without confident knowledge of whether one of their best players will join them. Josh Jacobs still does not want to play on the franchise tag and the team has yet to strike a deal with him for a different contract.

When asked if there was any hope that Jacobs would return soon, Raiders head coach Josh McDaniels said he had no update on the situation and said that he doesn’t anticipate Jacobs being able to just jump right into the swing of things if he changes his mind or agrees to a deal.

“I don't have any new news on J.J.,” McDaniels said after the Raiders' 34-17 preseason win over the Los Angeles Rams. “I mean, I would say I think that it's important for every player [to get practice]. It's the National Football League so it's not easy to go out there and just play games and do it at the speed and level that you want to do it at unless you've really had enough opportunity to get yourself ready to do that.

“We've talked all year to our team about nothing carries over from one year to the next,” the Raiders coach continued. “You have to re-establish your individual level of performance and collectively as a unit. And ultimately as a team, we have to establish and re-establish ourselves in terms of what we're going to be about. So whether it would be J.J. or somebody else, it's the same thing. Everybody's got to have an opportunity to do that, get re-acclimated to the pace, the speed of things. But again, I have no new information on the whole situation.”

While preseason performances are not always indicative of regular-season success, second-year running back Zamir White has looked promising. He may not be as good as Jacobs but McDaniels and Las Vegas may not feel immense pressure to get Jacobs back if White is good enough. The Raiders have brought in other free agents at running back, too.

The Raiders open their regular season on the road against the division-rival Denver Broncos, one of the tougher defenses in the league.