THERE’S NO SOLUTION TO THE NFL’S RUNNING BACK PAY PROBLEM

BY ADAM GREENE

Tuesday afternoon the NFL’s Franchise Tag signing period wrapped with none of the three running backs tagged by their respective teams — Saquon Barkley (New York Giants), Tony Pollard (Dallas Cowboys) and Josh Jacobs (Las Vegas Raiders) receiving a long term contract.

Pollard, as of this writing, is the only one of those backs to actually sign his $10.9 million guaranteed franchise tag.

At the same time, Austin Ekeler of the Los Angeles Chargers, heading into the final year of his second contract and due $7.75 million this season, is upset about the market he’ll be facing as a free agent next season, the unwillingness of his current team to give him a new contract to his liking and the overall depressed market for running backs.

With all this out there, the running backs in the league have apparently started a group chat where they can bounce ideas back and forth on how to fix this problem. Their first plan of attack? Whine about it on social media and to anyone who’ll listen. And that they did.

Ekeler spent the offseason asking for a trade, which the team let him seek. According to Ekeler that a trade didn’t materialize because he “came with a lot of baggage.”

“You were going to have to trade some high picks for me,” Ekeler told CBS Sports Radio. “The Chargers, they weren’t going to let me go for anything that wasn’t up there, so they saw my value there. It’s funny how when they allow me (to shop) the trade, they’re like, ‘OK, but we want you to get these types of picks,’ which were not low picks. ‘But we’re not going to pay you like you’re that type of player…. If you’re going to get traded, you got to get traded at this level, but if we’re going to keep you, we’re going to you down here at this level.’ …They have the leverage. And so that’s why it was tough for me to get anything out there or get a new contract where you’re going to have to give up high picks and also restructure my contract. That’s just being transparent on my situation.”

For his part, Barley has floated the idea that he just won’t sign the franchise tag or play at all this season.

“My leverage is I could day ‘F— you’ to the Giants,” Barkley told the Money Matters podcast. “I could say ‘F— you to my teammates. And be like, ‘You want me to show you my worth? You want me to show you how valuable I am to the team? I won’t show up. I won’t play a down.’ And that’s a play I could use. Anybody (that) knows me, knows that’s not something I want to do. Is it something that’s crossed my mind? I never thought I would ever do that, but now I’m at a point where I’m like, ‘Jesus, I might have to take it to this level,’ Am I prepared to take it to this level? I don’t know.

As for how we got here, Ekeler’s former teammate Melvin Gordon has some ideas.

“I think after Todd (Gurley) got paid and then (Los Angeles Rams head coach) Sean McVay come out and said, ‘I will never a pay a running back again; I’ll just use them and rotate them out,’ I think after that statement was made — and then I think they won the Super Bowl — it was like everybody just followed suit… I kind of think that’s where everything just started going downhill.”

So, what’s happened? Is this some kind nefarious plan by the owners, general managers and head coaches running the NFL to keep the RB market depressed? Has the game evolved in such a way as to minimize the importance of the running back position? Is there anything running backs like Barkley, Jacobs, Pollard and Ekeler, collectively with the other RBs in the league, can do about it?

My answer to all of those questions is the same. No. It’s not some evil plot. It’s not a change in the game and there’s absolutely nothing a single position group, regardless of how united they are (and, trust me, it’s just the top guys that are “united.” No seventh round draft pick out of UTSA is in this group chat), that can be done to fix it.

So what’s caused it?

The position itself hasn’t been undervalued. No team can win a championship without a solid running attack and a good running back. But, having a solid running attack and a good running back alone will not win you a championship. And the difference, in wins and losses, between fielding a good running back to a great one is negligible at best.

Here are the NFL’s last 10 leading rushers;

2022: Josh Jacobs, Las Vegas Raiders, 1,653 yards

2021: Jonathan Taylor, Indianapolis Colts, 1,811 yards

2020: Derrick Henry, Tennessee Titans, 2,027 yards

2019: Derrick Henry, Tennessee Titans, 1,504 yards

2018: Ezekiel Elliott, Dallas Cowboys, 1,434 yards

2017: Kareem Hunt, Kansas City Chiefs, 1,327 yards

2016: Ezekiel Elliott, Dallas Cowboys, 1,631 yards

2015: Adrian Peterson, Minnesota Vikings, 1,485 yards

2014: DeMarco Murray, Dallas Cowboys, 1,845 yards

2013: LeSean McCoy, Philadelphia Eagles, 1,607 yards

Here are the NFL’s last 10 Super Bowl Champions and their leading rushers;

2022: Kansas City Chiefs, Isiah Pacheco, 830 yards

2021: Los Angeles Rams, Sony Michel, 845 yards

2020: Tampa Bay Buccaneers, Ronald Jones II, 978 yards

2019: Kansas City Chiefs, Damien Williams, 498 yards

2018: New England Patriots, Sony Michel, 931 yards

2017: Philadelphia Eagles, LeGarrette Blount, 766 yards

2016: Denver Broncos, Devontae Booker, 612 yards

2015: New England Patriots, LeGarrette Blount, 703 yards

2014: Seattle Seahawks, Marshawn Lynch, 1.306 yards

2013: Baltimore Ravens, Ray Rice, 660 yards

Now, I am no math expert. I am in no danger of dropping my mop in the hallway and solving the unsolvable calculus problem left up on the chalkboard outside the local Ivy League professor’s office. The fact that I could do change in my head back when we  used cash all the time was a feat in itself, and one that is entirely useless to me today. The only thing I used the algebra I learned in high school for was to help my own kids with their algebra work when they were in high school. I can figure out stats, averages all the calculations I need to do my work now, but that’s it.

But, to my layman’s eyes, I see that only one of those past Super Bowl Champions had even a 1,000-yard rusher (the 2014 Seahawks). Every other guy on that list is good, but no one would think of them as elite. Yet two of them, LeGarrette Blount and Sony Michel, have won two Super Bowl rings on two separate teams.

Meanwhile, six of those 10 league leading rushers are currently unemployed by the NFL and two of them (McCoy and Murray) are probably out of the league for good. Adrian Peterson, from what I can tell, has yet to hang up his spurs. 

So that means the game has evolved in such a way as to make the position less valuable? I don’t think that’s the case. I think there are two factors involved.

1. We have a better overall group of quarterbacks in the NFL than we’ve had in all the league’s history.

2. The NCAA is too good at pumping out good running backs to the point that every season there are 5-7 new guys entering the league that could start on most teams from Day One.

These guys, Henry, Barkley and Jacobs, were raised in a world where the elite quarterbacks were few and far between. A world where Kerry Collins could get you to a Super Bowl just by not throwing the ball backwards every play. Hell, they lived on a planet where a Trent Dilfer could hoist a Vince Lombardi Trophy.

In the past 10 seasons, the three worst quarterbacks to start a Super Bowl are, and this is real, Jared Goff, Jimmy Garoppolo and Colin Kaepernick and they all lost. And two of those guys had the far better running back on their offense than the team they were facing. For Goff, it was Gurley, who was still a year away from his arthritic knee all but ending his career. For Kap, it was Frank Gore coming off a 1,214-yard, eight touchdown regular season.

In fact, if you go back through the list of Super Bowl winners, you’ll find that in pretty much every case, with the lone exception of the 2013-14 Seahawks, the losing team had the better running back. And that includes Miles Sanders of last year’s Eagles NFC Championship team who rushed for 1,269 yards and 11 touchdowns. Sanders is now with the Carolina Panthers and is making $6.35 million a season.

Let’s go back to that 2013-14 season when the Seahawks won it all with a run-first attack. Here’s some of the starting quarterbacks in the NFL that season — Blaine Gabbert, Josh Freeman, EJ Manuel, Christian Ponder, Brandon Weedon, Matt Flynn, Mark Sanchez, Jake Locker, Matt Schaub, Andy Dalton, Sam Bradford, Colin Kaepernick, Robert Griffin III, Joe Flacco, Carson Palmer. Cam Newton and Tony Romo.

Now, I’m not going to crap on Newton, Romo, Palmer and Flacco. They were all fine and Flacco, in his heyday, was one of the best postseason quarterbacks in NFL history. The dude was never one-and-done in the tournament. Not even as a rookie. Newton, of course, made it to a Super Bowl and won an MVP. Romo and Palmer, well, Tony is really good on TV. Other guys like Bradford and maybe even RG3, you could argue, had promising careers that were ruined by recurring injuries. Either way, this list is 17 out of 32 starting NFL quarterbacks.

But the fact remains, tt was a league of Baker Mayfields, Sam Darnolds and Mac Jones, so, of course, you needed weapons other places to win. The further back you go, the more glaring the quarterback play drop off across the league becomes.

Go back another five years to the 2008-09 season and here’s who you were dealing with as passers in the NFL — Matt Cassel, Chad Pennington, David Garrard, Jake Delhomme, Jason Campbell, Kyle Orton, Marc Bulger, Jeff Garcia, Trent Edwards, Kerry Collins, Tyler Thigpen as well as our old friends Tony Romo, Matt Schaub and Joe Flacco.

Another five years previous in 2003 gives you — Trent Green, Matt Hasselbeck, Brad Johnson, Jon Kitna, Daunte Culpepper, Tommy Maddox, Bulger, Quincy Carter, Delhomme, Collins, Joey Harrington, Byron Leftwich, Garcia, Jeff Blake, Jake Plummer, Patrick Ramsey (I forgot he even existed), Pennington and Jay Fielder.

The drop off from Tom Bradys, Peyton Manning, Aaron Rodgers, Ben Roethlisberger and Drew Brees was Grand Canyon-esque. It’s not like that anymore and, it’s been proven time and again, that a great quarterback, playing at the top of his game, can elevate your entire team to a championship level. How many game winning Super Bowl drives can you remember came from running back carries?

As to point No. 2, we need look no further than the 2022 NFL draft. We had 22 running backs selected in that draft class. Breece Hall, selected by the Jets in the second round, was instantly the best running back on their team, but nowhere near the best running back taken in the class. Kenneth Walker III, taken five spots behind him by the Seattle Seahawks, probably was and became their starting RB over multiple veteran options before the year was up. James Cook, taken by the Buffalo Bills at the end of the second, has now chased starter Devin Singletary out of town. Damieon Peirce, selected in the fourth, is the best RB on the Houston Texans’ roster and nearly hit 1,000 yards as a rookie. The Atlanta Falcons got a 1,035-yard season out of rookie Tyler Allgeier, taken in the fifth round and they still drafted Bijan Robinson in the first round this past April. And last, but certainly not least, Isaih Pacheco, taken by the Chiefs with the 251^st pick and the final RB taken in that entire draft, was the best runner on their team and now has a Super Bowl ring.

At no other position, in no other draft in NFL history, will you find five post first round picks all playing the exact same position who take over as their team’s starter before the year is up, not because of injuries, but because they’re the best player for the job. These weren’t guys selected to be a face of these franchises. They were picked for depth and to play special teams and they all completely supplanted the starters in front of them on the depth chart.

Find any other position in the NFL, even the other devalued roles of inside linebacker, center and safety, where that’s ever happened. Or even possible. You can’t.

The truth is, Austin Ekeler and Tony Pollard are the guys that prove this point. Pollard was a fourth round pick out of Memphis in 2019 and, within half a season, it was clear that he was the superior and more explosive player when compared to Ezekiel Elliott, who was going to cost Dallas $19.8 million the very next season.

And it wasn’t Sean McVay and Todd Gurley that cost Melvin Gordon his job with the Chargers. (McVay has never been quoted saying anything about “not paying an RB again” by the way. That was just the perception), it was Ekeler, who was signed as an undrafted free agent out of Western Colorado, that kept LA from offering Gordon more than $11 million a season.

So Ekeler has his job, and got a second contract that will pay him $7.75 million this season, specifically because he proved he could perform at the same level or better than the guy the Chargers were going to pay $11 million a year.

Gordon, for his part, also showed how silly the idea of rejecting that kind of money is for guys like Barkley and Jacobs, who have yet to sign their franchise tender. Not only did he not get more than $11 million on the open market, he’s gotten nowhere close since 2021. Last year, he was with the Broncos most of the season, but was cut and landed on the Chiefs practice squad for their playoff run. He never saw the field and made just $119,400. Put that with what he made from the Broncos in 2022, and Gordon collected $2.501 million. The Chargers offered him a four-year, $44 million contract and he walked away to earn $18.487 million over the same span. And the cheaper guy that replaced him outperformed Gordon to the point that that guy, Ekeler, is now complaining about RB pay.

And if Barkley is serious about possibly sitting out, maybe he should look at the example set by Le’Veon Bell, who did just that instead of signing his tag and accepting a five-year, $70 million contract from the Pittsburgh Steelers in 2018.

Bell didn’t make a dollar in 2018, signed with the New York Jets after and hated it before getting cut and bouncing around the league for three more seasons. $70 million turned into $29.341 million. Oh, and the guy the Steelers replaced Bell with, James Conner, was a 2017 third rounder that delivered 1,470 combined offensive yards in 2018 and scored 13 touchdowns to make the Pro Bowl. And Pittsburgh didn’t hesitate to let him walk after his contract was up. They learned their lesson.

And now every team has.

The fact that guys like Christian McCaffery and Derrick Henry have made enough money to push the franchise tag over $10 million is a gift. No running back will ever make more than that in a season again. Sign the tag, take the money and if the Giants, Raiders and Cowboys are willing to make that the yearly salary, thank the Good Lord and take that deal.

The New York Giants don’t make the playoffs without Barkley last season. There’s no doubt about it. But he’s not going to get them to the Super Bowl. Daniel Jones continuing to improve is what will do it. Barkley can either be part of that process or watch from another team who’ll be home come late January. And he still won’t be making $11 million or more a season.

Josh Jacobs led the league in rushing last season and the Raiders finished well below .500. Jonathan Taylor led it in 2021 with 1,811 yards. The Indianapolis Colts finished 9-8 and didn’t make the playoffs.

Right now, there are only three running backs even in the MVP field. Barkley at +10000, tied with Ryan Tannehill, Jimmy Garoppolo and Ja’Marr Chase. Derrick Henry and Nick Chubb are both at +20000, tied with Mac Jones, a guy who could very well be benched for Bailey Zappe by midseason.

The Offensive Player of the Year is a different story, with Christian McCaffrey, the highest paid running back in the league, leading the way at +1000. Chub is +1400, Ekeler +1600, Taylor +1800, Henry at +2500, Hall at +3300, Robinson at +3300, Najee Harris at +4000, Travis Etienne at +5000, Cook at +5000, Alvin Kamara at +7500 and Rashaad Penny at +7500. There are seven other running backs with worse odds than that.

The fact is, the Raiders and Giants couldn’t be faulted at all if they pulled these tags right now and let Barkley and Jacobs walk. Are they both that much better than Dalvin Cook, who’s sitting at home as a free agent right now and could be had, I’m guessing, for around $7-8 million? Cook had 1,468 yards of offense with 10 touchdowns last season. Barkley finished with 1,650 yards and 10 touchdowns. Jacobs had 2,053 yards and 12 touchdowns. Cook’s team went 13-4. Barkley’s 9-7-1 and Jacobs’ was 6-11.

Sign the deal before the Giants and Raiders figure out what I just did. Take the money. There’s no fixing this because there is no problem to fix.

Follow Adam Greene on Twitter @TheFirstMan.

Connect with us our socials on Twitter and Instagram for the latest sports news, viral moments, betting odds and the occasional memes.