The NFL’s contract extension deadline came and went this week. It led to a minor upheaval among the league’s most valuable running backs.
2022 rushing leader Josh Jacobs, former top-2 NFL Draft pick Saquon Barkley and Dallas Cowboys RB1 Tony Pollard each went without long-term deals for 2023. For Pollard, the only member of the group to sign his franchise tag tender, that means a single year contract at $10.91 million this fall — the lowest non-special teams tag payout in the league. For Jacobs and Barkley, two players who haven’t yet signed, it could mean lengthy holdouts and skipped summer practices.
This year’s lack of extensions wasn’t just noticed by the players who failed to receive them. The NFL’s brightest stars took to Twitter to express their displeasure toward a league that seems set on devaluing the work they do.
At this point , just take the RB position out the game then . 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 . https://t.co/OgvBWZCKvn
— Derrick Henry (@KingHenry_2) July 17, 2023
1. If you’re good enough, they’ll find you.
2. If you work hard enough, you’ll succeed.
…If you succeed…
3. You boost the Organization
…and then…
Doesn’t matter, you’re a RB https://t.co/mG6In1ATGg
— Jonathan Taylor (@JayT23) July 17, 2023
It’s easy to understand this frustration. But it’s also difficult to see how it will lead to meaningful change.
Players like Henry and Taylor have a point; great running backs can be treated as though they’re disposable despite their starring roles each Sunday. But, through no fault of their own outside of their own talent they kinda, sort of, are.
There's no positional scarcity
Simply put, there are too many good running backs in the NFL and rising up from the college ranks. When you can reliably pluck runners capable of giving you four-plus yards per carry and value as a receiver from the lower tiers of free agency and Day 3 of the NFL Draft, it creates a certain contract gravity that makes it difficult for even the league’s best tailbacks to escape.
For example, nine of the league’s 15 running backs to rush for at least 1,000 yards in 2022 were on inexpensive rookie contracts. Four members of that group were selected in the fourth round or later.
Five of the remaining six were among the top paid players at their positions, but sandwiched between Christian McCaffrey and Derrick Henry on the pay scale were Ezekiel Elliott, Alvin Kamara and Dalvin Cook. Elliott and Kamara underwhelmed last fall and Cook, despite being a top-10 back in terms of volume in 2022, wound up released this offseason anyway.
The final member of that 15 man cohort was Jamaal Williams, who outshined D’Andre Swift with the Detroit Lions on a two-year, $6 million contract. Thus, you’ve got a position where value can come from anywhere. It can also fade like Wish.com patio furniture in the desert sun.
While it’s true the league appears to be valuing running backs more in recent years, that’s only going to lead to modest increases in salary. In April, the Atlanta Falcons and Detroit Lions marked the first time since 2017 that two runners were selected in the first half of the first round. Over the first four years of his rookie contract, eighth overall pick Bijan Robinson will average just less than $5.5 million in salary per year. Twelfth overall pick Jahmyr Gibbs clocks in at $4.45 million annually. Both will make less than Austin Ekeler’s bargain 2020 extension — the same one he’s rightfully complaining about this offseason.
It’s a tough sell to ask a team pressed up against the salary cap to invest heavily in a tailback when there’s always a chance there’s a proper multi-year starter languishing through the tail end of the draft or free agency. Heck, at the time of writing, Cook, Elliott, Leonard Fournette and Kareem Hunt are all still available. If you need someone to take snaps in the backfield, there’s gonna be someone out there who can step into the void and produce.
Which is a good thing for NFL offenses, because…
Injury woes and high rates of burnout have made big contracts a tough sell
No player in the game gets tackled more than a running back. This leads to tremendous wear and tear as superhero bodies smash into one another 20-plus times per week over the course of a 17-game season.
Eight running backs averaged at least $12 million in annual salary last year. Among that group, only two players have missed fewer than four games in a given season between 2020 and 2022. They were Aaron Jones, who was asked to take a pay cut this offseason, and Elliott, who is currently unemployed.
That leaves a landscape where a running back is much more likely to get Comeback Player of the Year votes than MVP votes. Wide receivers and tight ends can thrive well into their late 20s and early 30s, but a 30-year-old running back feels ancient in comparison to his surroundings.
For example, seven of the top-20 players by receiving yardage were 28 or older in 2022. Only two of the top-20 runners last fall were in their age 28 season. No one was older.
It’s easier to understand the trepidation teams have when it comes to large contracts and high draft picks when you put names to it. Christian McCaffrey signed a $64 million extension with the Carolina Panthers in 2020 and then missed 23 games the two seasons that followed. Ezekiel Elliott signed a six-year, $90 million deal in 2019. In the four seasons that followed, his rushing yards over expected (RYOE), a Next Gen Stats metric that measures how a runner performed against the league average in similar situations, dropped from 122 (eighth best among RBs) to 15 to -25 to -58 (fourth worst in the NFL).
Running backs get beat up. This gives team executives leverage. Between rookie contracts and franchise tags, they can squeeze the most productive years of their careers while barely scraping market rates for superstar play. And it’s difficult to find a solution to this problem, because…
With a finite pool of available cash, the NFLPA's advocacy for RB contracts means less money elsewhere
The NFLPA wants its running backs to be paid better. But the NFLPA wants all its players to be paid better, which makes that difficult.
With a hard salary cap, compensating players is a zero sum game. Advocating for more money funneled to running backs means taking it away from veterans elsewhere. Eliminating the franchise tag for running backs isn’t an option unless it’s eliminated at every position. Both sides at the negotiating table know this, so it’s tough to see any specific positional reform going anywhere unless it’s used as a bargaining chip to push something bigger.
It’s going to be difficult for tailbacks to argue their value as a singular force on a winning team. They can’t be a rogue wave without crashing into their fellow players, they can only be part of a rising tide. History suggests star runners only tilt the scale so much when it comes to building legitimate contenders.
Too many teams win without marquee running backs
Of the six players on non-rookie contracts to rush for 1,000 yards in 2022, only one made the playoffs. That was Cook and the Vikings, who were quickly disposed by the New York Giants in the wild card round. Only two of 2021’s seven total 1,000-yard runners made the postseason — Joe Mixon (who just took a pay cut) and Elliott (as noted, currently jobless).
Here are the leading rushers for the last five Super Bowl champions:
2022 Kansas City Chiefs: Isiah Pacheco (rookie contract, seventh round pick)
2021 Los Angeles Rams: Sony Michel (rookie contract, first round pick, acquired for fourth and sixth round selections)
2020 Tampa Bay Buccaneers: Ronald Jones (rookie contract, second round pick)
2019 Kansas City Chiefs: Damien Williams (signed to a two-year, $5.1 million deal, orginally undrafted)
2018 New England Patriots: Sony Michel (rookie contract, first round pick)
Not one of those players has rushed for more than 1,000 yards in a single season. Multiple teams have proven they can win Super Bowls with Sony by-god Michel as their top ball carrier. There’s a championship blueprint to be followed, and it doesn’t involve a big money RB1.
Dig further back into history, and you’ll find examples of franchises earning Super Bowl rings after losing marquee tailbacks. The Indianapolis Colts got theirs after Edgerrin James left. The New York Giants lifted the Lombardi Trophy following Tiki Barber’s retirement. The Philadelphia Eagles won their title two years after releasing DeMarco Murray, who’d signed a five-year, $40 million deal just to flame out in Pennsylvania.
The last team to win a Super Bowl with a superstar running back was the 2013 Seattle Seahawks, who acquired Marshawn Lynch from the Buffalo Bills at the cost of a pair of Day 3 draft picks.
All these factors weigh heavily against 2023’s running back class. They’re why Barkley and Jacobs and Pollard are now forced to choose between one season at the lowest non-special teams franchise tag price or a holdout that could cost them a year of their already short primes. There’s no simple fix to this and no opportunity to negotiate the league’s collective bargaining agreement until after the 2030 season — and the last one didn’t exactly work out great for the players.
So, unfortunately, this is the reality in 2023 and likely for the foreseeable future. Should star running backs be paid more? Absolutely. But a lack of positional scarcity, rise of successful platoons and the wear and tear that comes with absorbing car crash tackles repeatedly each weekend makes it incredibly difficult for them to chase that value.
In short, it sucks. But I’m not sure there’s an answer to the problem that doesn’t involve lengthy holdouts — and even that carries significant uncertainty with it. Just look at what happened to the star of A Bug’s Life… er, I mean Le’Veon Bell.
Disney a LONG time ago (1998) taught me a valuable lesson about sticking together, go watch “A Bug’s Life” … it’ll put in perspective the running back market .. the running backs are the ants .. I’m Flik (The Inventive Ant) I took ALL the damage from the grasshoppers (Owners)
— Le'Veon Bell (@LeVeonBell) July 18, 2023
