Josh Jacobs and Jonathon Cooper are cleared to return to the field in Week 7. The league is taking both players off the Commissioner Exempt List, ending a six-game absence for each, while its personal conduct reviews of both cases go on.
Cooper, the Broncos’ edge rusher, came off the list on Friday, October 16. Jacobs, the Packers’ running back, comes off on Monday, October 19, the day after Green Bay faces Dallas on Sunday night. From then on he can practice and play. Tom Pelissero was first to report the moves before the league confirmed them.
The decision is not a verdict. The league said its investigation of Jacobs is still running and is not affected by his return to the roster, and the same holds for Cooper. Because neither player was formally suspended, discipline is still possible. If the league does suspend either man, the weeks spent on the exempt list would be expected to count toward it, which is why a penalty matching the six games already missed is widely expected. That is a projection, not an announced decision.
The two cases
Both players were placed on the list on Sunday, August 30. Jacobs was arrested in Wisconsin in May after an altercation with his girlfriend and initially faced five counts, one of them a felony. The case was later reduced to two misdemeanors, battery and criminal damage to property, and on Thursday, September 10 he pleaded no contest. On Thursday, October 15 he went to court to keep the evidence in the case sealed. Jeremy Fowler reported that the woman declined to speak with league investigators.
His lawyers said in a statement that Jacobs accepts responsibility for his actions, has worked on himself in recent months and will say nothing more while legal matters remain open.
A statement from Josh Jacobs’ attorneys, Clarence F. Duchac III, David Z. Chesnoff and Richard A. Schonfeld: pic.twitter.com/pqYrXSj2bB
— Jeremy Fowler (@JFowlerESPN) October 16, 2026
Cooper’s case is still before a Colorado court. He was arrested in June on domestic violence and criminal mischief counts that were later amended to include felony second-degree assault by strangulation. He pleaded not guilty and was arrested again days later on a charge of violating a protection order. His trial has been pushed back to March 2027. In his own statement he said he had spent a lot of time trying to better himself.
What it means on the field
Green Bay has gone 3-2 without Jacobs and owns the league’s 32nd-ranked rushing attack. Jacobs, a three-time Pro Bowl pick, piled up 1,329 rushing yards with 15 scores two seasons ago before a 929-yard, 13-touchdown 2025, and he is under contract through 2027. Cooper, a 2021 seventh-round pick, was a 17-game starter for Denver in every one of the last three years.
What comes next
Both players are lined up for Sunday, October 25: Cooper and the Broncos visit the Cardinals at 4:05 p.m. ET (Game Center), and Jacobs and the Packers travel to Detroit at 4:25 p.m. ET (Game Center). Any discipline decision from the league office would come separately.
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