Jacobs performing like a rookie steal

Former Alabama running back gives Oakland a playmaker.

Raiders running back Josh Jacobs is becoming a front-runner for the 2019 NFL Offensive Rookie of the Year award.

He’s thumping the 2018 field as well.

Admit it, you furrowed your brow when the Raiders selected Jacobs with the 24th pick in last spring’s draft. The guy played three seasons for Alabama — a college powerhouse, a machine, invincible.

And yet he was never Alabama’s leading rusher — finishing fourth on the team in 2016, fifth in 2017 and third in 2018. During Jacobs’ tenure at Bama, seven running backs rushed for more than 700 yards in a season. Jacobs was not among them.

That doesn’t make him dog food. No doubt there were extenuating circumstances, perhaps Alabama coach Nick Saban’s predilection for collecting blue chip running backs in bulk.

But you know how draft day goes. Everyone’s an expert. Every draft pick is either a masterstroke or a who’s-he?

How do you like him so far? Jacobs ran for 123 yards and two touchdowns in the Raiders’ win over the Bears on Sunday. He has rushed for 430 yards in his first five NFL games. No Raiders rookie has ever done that. Not Marcus Allen. Not Bo Jackson.

Jacobs leads all rookie running backs in rushing (430; 205 yards ahead of Chicago’s David Montgomery) and rushing touchdowns (four).

Get this: If you compare what Jacobs has done during his first five games in the NFL against the first five games of Saquon Barkley, last year’s NFL Offensive Rookie of the Year, well, there’s daylight between them. Jacobs has 122 more rushing yards and one more touchdown.

The hyperbole police insist I have to say those three magic words: Small sample size. Jacobs, as we speak, may be the class of this season’s offensive rookie class (and the one last season), but there are miles to run this year and in his career. It appears he has the perfect mindset for such a challenge.

If you watched the draft, you may recall Jacobs was wearing a snazzy blue suit. In the lining of the jacket was a depiction of a some kind of flower emerging from some kind of crack.

“A concrete rose,” he said. “I came from nothing and now I’m here.”

JACK THOMAS / GETTY IMAGES Raiders rookie running back Josh Jacobs (28), a first-round pick in April, leaps into the end zone for the go-ahead touchdown against the Bears in the fourth quarter Sunday at Tottenham Hotspur Stadium in London.