Josh Jacobs, MarShawn Lloyd Fantasy Draft Landing Spot with AJ Dillon Out for Season

The Green Bay Packers placed veteran running back AJ Dillon on season-ending injured reserve Tuesday due to a neck injury.

That news came as the Packers finalized their 53-man roster for the 2024 season, keeping Josh Jacobs, MarShawn Lloyd and Emanuel Wilson at running back. Both Ellis Merriweather and Nate McCrary were released.

So, how does Tuesday's news affect the fantasy football stock of the remaining running backs?

For Jacobs, not much.

He was always going to be the clear feature back on this offense, and it's unlikely Dillon would have affected that much. Despite receiving 175 or more carries in each of the past three seasons while in something of a timeshare with Aaron Jones, Dillon never managed to finish higher than 23rd among running backs in fantasy football, per ESPN.

Certainly, the Packers didn't surprisingly sign Jacobs to a four-year, $48 million deal this offseason—cutting Jones loose in the process—to have him split touches with Dillon. He was an RB1 before Tuesday's news, and little has changed in that regard.

The temptation to suggest Dillon might have eaten into Jacobs' short-yardage attempts, and thereby his goal-line chances, might have crossed your mind. But Dillon was never great in those situations, with only 16 career rushing touchdowns in four seasons.

Perhaps Jacobs sees a slightly bigger workload now. Maybe he gets a slight bump in productivity. But he always had huge, RB1 upside.

The bigger question coming into the 2024 season was whether Dillon would be able to hold off Lloyd, the team's third-round pick in April, for the backup spot.

That's a moot point now, and Lloyd gets an overall bump as the clear handcuff for Jacobs in the event of an injury. His speed and explosiveness makes him an interesting alternative to Jacobs, and he could see a small role as a change-of-pace option, so he's absolutely worth rostering. But the expectation is that Jacobs handles the majority of the touches out of the backfield.

Consider Lloyd a late-round sleeper as an RB4 or 5.