Get Off the Field | Harvard Independent

During a game on Oct. 29, Green Bay Packers running back Josh Jacobs reached the end zone and placed his hands behind his back in a mock handcuff gesture. Jacobs later claimed the celebration was an ode to the gospel song “Break Every Chain,” but the imagery was an uncomfortable call to reality. Just months earlier, Jacobs was arrested following a domestic dispute and later pleaded no contest to two misdemeanor battery charges. The celebration came just 10 days after the NFL cleared him to play, in only his second game back on the field.

Jacobs was arrested on May 26 following a complaint about an incident that had occurred on May 23. He was initially held without bond on felony charges including strangulation, suffocation, disorderly conduct, battery, damage to property, and intimidation of a victim. He was released from jail on May 27. Prosecutors later filed only two misdemeanor battery counts, and in September Jacobs pleaded no contest to both.

Jacobs’s celebration on the field represents more than a moment of poor taste. It’s indicative of a culture that allows professional athletes to commit acts of domestic violence so long as they can still score a touchdown. Jacobs has played every week since he was removed from the Commissioner’s exempt list, all while the details of the alleged attacks sat in a public police report. The exempt list is not a punishment; it’s paid leave. Jacobs will still receive his salary (his contract is worth $48 million over four years), and the NFL never announced a formal suspension. He was allowed back while the league’s own investigation into the domestic violence charges was still open.

His case is not an isolated incident; it fits a familiar pattern for the league. Players face serious and verifiable allegations of domestic violence, the news cycle forgets about it, and they stay on the field. When the NFL and its teams keep playing a player in his situation without comment, they tell fans, survivors, and the world that winning outweighs accountability. Jacobs’s gesture makes that hard to miss.

The decision to keep Jacobs is a calculated one; without Jacobs, Green Bay had the worst rushing offense in the NFL. Even after three more women came forward, head coach Matt LaFleur said he could “anticipate him being a member of us moving forward.”

According to the 129-page police report, the victim described Jacobs as “look[ing] like a different person” during the alleged attack. She further stated that it was the first time he had ever tried to strangle or suffocate her. “She said that she thought she was going to die,” police wrote in the report. Her fear is far from an overreaction. Research indicates that women who survive strangulation by a partner are about 7.5 times as likely to be killed later by that same partner. Conveniently for Jacobs, the strangulation and suffocation allegations were not among the charges ultimately filed, and he was only charged with two misdemeanors.

The incident allegedly began when the woman brought up Jacobs speaking to other women. When she tried to leave, Jacobs prevented her from doing so, breaking her phone and slamming her to the ground in the garage by her neck. After waking up, she reported that she was “seeing dots/stars.” The garage surveillance footage was not released, as both Jacobs and the alleged victim sued to block it.

Jacobs was then pulled over on May 26 while a passenger in a car. Upon his arrest, he told officers he planned to report himself. In released footage from a conversation with a police officer, Jacobs commented on the situation. “If I know I 100% didn’t do anything wrong, what can I do in a situation to, you know, avoid it? To me, it’s like, unfair, you know what I’m saying. So I don’t really understand,” Jacobs said, according to the audio log of the conversation.

According to records released by the Hobart-Lawrence Police Department on Oct. 30, following the initial allegations in May, three women reported other incidents of abuse by Jacobs dating as far back as April 2021. Jacobs’s attorneys released a statement: “The Brown County District Attorney’s office had these uncorroborated, old, and previously unreported allegations for months … the D.A. determined that only two misdemeanor charges were warranted … Josh has repeatedly expressed his remorse and is honoring the agreement.”

One survivor said that Jacobs threw her belongings outside, pushed her against a wall, and grabbed her by her arms, resulting in pain and swelling in her ribs and bruising to her arms. She stated that she called the police after the incident, and reports from responding officers indicated no observed injuries or damage. Another survivor reported that in May 2022, Jacobs had placed his hands on her neck and head, dragged her around, taken her cell phone, and scratched her chest, leaving her with bruising and scratches. The woman did not report the incident or seek treatment because she was not a U.S. citizen and feared deportation. By her account, Jacobs himself told her she could be deported if she reported him.

Jacobs has claimed that these reports are an “attack” on his character. In a statement, his lawyers said he denied all accusations. In September, he pleaded no contest to two misdemeanor charges of battery and was convicted. Jacobs has consistently denied the allegations. “At the end of the day, there’s a lot of stuff being said about me that’s completely false, like, completely made up, and it’s like, people just run with it, and I can’t change that,” he said in an interview with reporters. “All I can do is try to be who I am and try not to let the negative moments change who I am. And that was the biggest thing for me throughout this whole process.”

Despite Jacobs’s denials, the volume and severity of the accusations remain alarming. The connection between football and domestic violence is not new: In June alone, Alaric Jackson of the Los Angeles Rams and Jonathon Cooper of the Denver Broncos were arrested. In February, James Pearce Jr. of the Atlanta Falcons was arrested, and Rashee Rice of the Kansas City Chiefs was sued.

They join several other players arrested in recent years. This pattern of normalized violence extends beyond the field. The Super Bowl has been associated with an increase in domestic violence, with studies showing that reports of male-on-female intimate partner violence rise about 10% after upset losses by the home team.

The association between football and violence is often handled poorly. The NFL struggles to take accusations of domestic violence seriously: Jacobs did not play for the first six weeks of the season, but his return to the field was immediate and seamless. Sports are often used to explain away abuse. Male athletes who harm women are written off as merely emotional or high-strung—intense, as competitors are expected to be. Fans defend players, arguing that sports are a tense environment and that a player’s competitive value matters more than the harm they have caused.

The league has been here before. In 2014, Ray Rice got only a two-game suspension even after a video of him dragging his unconscious fiancée out of an elevator surfaced. The public outcry is what pushed the NFL to adopt a baseline six-game suspension for domestic violence. Within that same policy, choking is listed as a reason for a longer suspension, and the policy does not require a criminal conviction before the league can discipline a player. The NFL has every tool to prevent Jacobs from playing; so far it has chosen not to use them.

When high-powered, physically larger men are allowed to hurt women and partners, it serves as an extreme and excused example of the domestic violence that occurs all around the world. And when it happens on a public scale but remains unaddressed, it reflects the ignorant assumptions that prevent victims of domestic violence from seeking help. Athletes like Jacobs, with multiple allegations over an extended period, should face scrutiny and punishment and no longer be allowed on the field. When they are allowed to continue, it sets a dangerous precedent, telling victims that their pain does not matter for the sake of scoring a few more points.

Anika Gupta ’30 (anikagupta@college.harvard.edu) and Salma Gheith ’30 (salmagheith@college.harvard.edu) are comping the “Harvard Independent.”