After Packers running back Josh Jacobs scored his first of two touchdowns on Thursday night, he seemed to celebrate by pretending to be in handcuffs. That sparked widespread criticism of his apparently effort to trivialize the event that resulted in his May 2026 arrest — an altercation that resulted in a no-contest plea to battery of a female.
Jacobs explained the celebration after the game, claiming it was part of a more elaborate display that the TV cameras didn’t fully capture, one that had nothing to do with Jacobs’s arrest.
A more lengthy video of the celebration was surfaced, and it doesn’t seem to support Jacobs’s explanation.
At first, Jacobs has his hands behind his back. Later, Jacobs moves his hands to the front. Teammate Savion Williams seems to unlock the handcuffs that Jacobs says weren’t handcuffs.
Even if Jacobs is telling the truth, it’s a stunning lack of awareness as to how the celebration would be perceived. And his decision to react to the question by complaining that Prime Video showed “fuckin’ one second” of the celebration and that the media is “gonna make it something that it wasn’t” is hardly the kind of contrition he should be displaying, given the broader circumstances.