PHILADELPHIA — Here’s another fun game:
Try to name every running back who has rushed for at least 500 yards in an Eagles uniform since 2016. There are 11 of them, which is more than any other team in the NFL. Go ahead and think. In the meantime, I’ll tell you why I wasted my time looking all of this up.
Howie Roseman knows market value. It’s why the Eagles have won two NFC championships since he returned to the general manager’s chair in 2016. It’s also why the whole Bijan Robinson campaign was built on a bed of lies. The Eagles were never going to draft a running back in the first half of the first round. For years, the market has made it clear that it makes no sense to spend significant draft or salary-cap capital on the position. The Eagles are where they are because they were wise enough to recognize it.
One thing this offseason has made clear: the rest of the NFL is catching up. The last few months could well go down as a watershed moment of sorts. Last we checked, three of the NFL’s top five active rushing leaders were languishing on the free-agent market without a contract. Two more of the game’s most recognizable names had failed to extend their contracts beyond a one-year franchise tag.
Ezekiel Elliott, Dalvin Cook, Melvin Gordon, Saquon Barkley, Josh Jacobs.
Each of the five ranks among the NFL’s top 15 in total touches over the last seven seasons. Between them, they have been voted to 13 Pro Bowls. Four of the five are still at least two years shy of their 30th birthdays. Three of the five were drafted in the last five years. Together, they represent either an ethical failure or a market failure. The game’s most punishing position is also the one that teams value the least, in large part because of that punishment. That doesn’t seem right.
Where you go from there depends both on your worldview and the level of rigor with which you live according to it. It’s not something that can be solved in a sentence. Nor is it the point of this column. But it’s worth acknowledging, if only to preempt the arguments of those who are hell-bent on destroying anybody who does not share their conclusions on the proper way to deal with life’s uncomfortable inconsistencies. We live in a society where some of the most physically detrimental jobs are some of the least compensated. It’s always been that way. That doesn’t mean we shouldn’t strive to change the way things are. But there’s usually a reason they got that way. And changing them takes a lot more willpower than most of us are willing to muster.
Right now, the market is what we have. It stinks to be a running back. It’s good to be a team looking to hire one. To a certain extent, that’s nothing new. It’s why Le’Veon Bell held out for a year. It’s why the Rams released Todd Gurley one year after he led them to a Super Bowl and finished third in Offensive Player of the Year voting. It’s why Gurley was out of the league one year later at the age of 27.
The big difference in the summer of 2023 is the number of teams who seem to understand the realities of the market. Once upon a time, the Eagles were comfortably ahead of the curve. They understood that you didn’t need to spend big draft picks or big dollars to acquire a running back who was perfectly capable of starting in a championship-caliber backfield. From Duce Staley to Brian Westbrook, who were third-round picks, to second-round picks LeSean McCoy and Miles Sanders, the four most successful running backs of the last two decades were all taken outside the first round.
There are still plenty of heads in the sand, as evidenced by the pre-draft groundswell of support for Robinson. By most accounts, the Texas star was one of a small handful of singular difference makers to come out of college over the last decade. But look at the three players who join him in that small handful: Gurley, Elliott and Barkley. None of them can find a single team who values them anywhere close to where consensus valued them on draft day. The eldest among that trio is four years younger than Lane Johnson, whom the Eagles selected in the first round in 2012 and who is currently preparing for his 11th NFL season. That’s the kind of payoff a team should be looking for out of a first-round pick.
The Eagles have gotten exactly that: from Johnson, from Brandon Graham, from Fletcher Cox. All three are still on the roster more than a decade after they were drafted. Jalen Carter, this year’s top pick, has the potential to be that kind of player.
Meanwhile, look at how Roseman addressed the running back position. The irony of the Eagles’ offseason is that they acquired two running backs who were originally drafted with top-35 picks, and they did it for the combined price tag of a fourth-round pick, a sixth-round pick, and about $3 million in cap space. D’Andre Swift is 24. Rashaad Penny is 27. Both were drafted within the last five years, higher than the Eagles themselves have drafted any running back since Keith Byars.
Meanwhile, the Eagles have made two Super Bowls and positioned themselves for an extended run of dominance in the NFC during a seven-year stretch in which 11 different running backs have given them at least 500 rushing yards.
Sanders, Josh Adams, Jay Ajayi, LeGarrette Blount, Corey Clement, Kenneth Gainwell, Jordan Howard, Ryan Mathews, Boston Scott, Wendell Smallwood, Darren Sproles.
Swift and Penny could both join that club this season.
That’s unfortunate for the long-term earning potential of those running backs. But it’s the smart way for the Eagles to do business.
