Police continue to withhold the Josh Jacobs video

As Packers running back Josh Jacobs continues to spend the early weeks of the 2026 season on paid leave, the NFL reportedly still hasn’t gotten access to the key piece of video generated by the incident that resulted in a guilty plea to battery.

Via Danielle Lerner of USA Today, police in Wisconsin are delaying the release of the video — both to the NFL and to the media.

Last month, the judge presiding over the criminal case lifted a temporary court order sealing the evidence in the case, while concluding that the Hobart-Lawrence Police Department had the discretion “to apply a balancing test between the rights of the public, the defendant and the victim in deciding whether to release the records.”

In an October 13 letter to USA Today, Hobart-Lawrence police chief Michael Renkas explained that, although the department determined it could release some records with “appropriate redactions,” it is required to wait because the lawyers in the underlying case intend to seek a new court order blocking the disclosure.

“Accordingly, the Department is temporarily withholding all responsive records in accordance with the statutory waiting period and any applicable court orders,” Renkas wrote. “This temporary hold does not constitute a denial of your request or a reversal of the Department’s balancing-test determination.”

Some in league circles believe Jacobs could return from paid leave soon, with the games Jacobs has missed eventually being credited toward his suspension. However, it seems unlikely that the NFL will allow Jacobs to play until it sees the video.

The NFL learned the hard way the lesson of closing a player’s Personal Conduct Policy case without first seeing the relevant video. The release of the Ray Rice elevator video in September 2014, coupled with a report that the NFL had seen it before it was leaked to TMZ, sparked a major controversy that threatened the employment of the Commissioner.

Surely, the league won’t risk putting itself in that same position again. And so the bottom-line message is, or should be, that Jacobs doesn’t play until the NFL sees the video.