“At this point, just take the RB position out the game then,” Henry wrote, responding to a tweet from Matt Miller, an ESPN draft analyst who detailed a draft-and-replace process that seems to be underway across the NFL. “The ones that want to be great & work as hard as they can to give their all to an organization, just seems like it don’t even matter. I’m with every RB that’s fighting to get what they deserve.”
And so did the Chargers’ Austin Ekeler, who was so unhappy with his contract that he reportedly requested a trade earlier this year. “They act,” Ekeler tweeted, “like we are discardable widgets.” (...)
The running back market has been crashing for years. When it bottomed out on Monday, you could sense players finally beginning to grieve. While it’s noble for Henry to say he will fight for what running backs “deserve,” it’s also sad to think about how unwinnable that fight will be. Whether these individual players are deserving has nothing to do with it.
This has been a brutal year for the position. This offseason, Dallas cut star running back Ezekiel Elliott (age: 27). The Vikings did the same with Dalvin Cook (27), Tampa Bay released Leonard Fournette (28), and the Browns declined to re-sign Kareem Hunt (27). Cincinnati’s Joe Mixon (26) took a significant pay cut to avoid joining them in the free agent pool. Green Bay’s Aaron Jones (28) also took a $5 million pay reduction. The Titans reportedly made Henry (an elderly 29) available for trade in the spring, but had no takers for a player who had more than 1,900 yards from scrimmage last year. And there was no trade market for Ekeler (28) despite having a dozen more touchdowns than any skill position player in the NFL over the last two seasons. Ekeler stayed in L.A. and settled for some extra contract incentives. (...)
Assuming they sign the franchise tag and show up to training camp next week, Barkley, and Jacobs will be paid the same fixed, non-negotiable salary of $10.1 million each for the season. That’s a lot of money to most people. But consider that a wide receiver making $10 million wouldn’t even rank among the top 25 players at the position in 2023. In the NBA, a player making $10 million per year wouldn’t even be among the top 150 in the entire league. (...)
This positional devaluation has been brewing since 2011, when the NFL and the NFL Players Association agreed to essentially delay massive contracts for first-round picks until their fourth, fifth or even sixth year in the league. But by the time running backs have been in the league that long, they are often already declining. When wide receivers, quarterbacks, and defensive ends are turning 26, they’re hitting life-altering paydays as they approach their primes. NFL running backs turning 26 get treated like Leonardo DiCaprio’s girlfriends.
As running backs fell through the cracks of a new financial model, a running back’s job, in and of itself, also became less important than ever. Passing supplanted running as the dominant football strategy because coaches have realized the average pass goes 7 yards and the average run goes a little over 4. Not only had the job of the running back been devalued, but it’s also been split among players. Most teams figure they can put together a functional running game by committee, giving 20 percent of the money to a few guys who can replace 90 percent of the production.
by Danny Heifetz, The Ringer | Read more:
Image: Getty Images/Ringer
