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And that, to me, was illustrated in a discussion I had with one prominent agent Sunday on the topic, with his central point being that the very best at the position have to find a way to transcend the letters next to their names.
“If you’re deserving of more money, and the team feels like you can get it, they’re gonna give it to you,” the agent says. “Some running backs are considered by their teams to be difference-makers, more than they are running backs. Those guys get paid.”
The four guys left making $12 million per year or more illustrate that, really, to get there, you need to be a difference-maker in one of two ways.
Ezekiel Elliott, who just exited that pay tier, is a two-time rushing champion with three 50-catch seasons (and another at 47 catches) on his ledger. Joe Mixon, who also just left the group, has gone over 1,100 yards three times and, as his ground production declined last year, managed 60 catches, which motivated the Bengals to keep him on a reduced deal.
Here’s the crux of it—these guys are proving to be the exceptions, and bring something their teams don’t think they’ll be able to easily replace. And in an environment where one Super Bowl team started a seventh-round rookie (Isiah Pacheco), and the other let its starter (Miles Sanders) walk months later for $6 million per year, more teams than ever believe they can find a guy who’s good enough without paying the freight.
And, yeah, I know we’re starting to belabor the point because this is the last week before things really pick up, but I do think it’s worth, one last time, giving you a quick rundown of what the running backs are up against.
I think there are five real problems.
Replaceability. More teams are convinced they can find players for a song deep in the draft, and churn the position over years. We mentioned Sanders. He’ll get $6.98 million in cash in Carolina this year. Philly is spending $7.92 million total on the six players it’s rostering at the position to replace him.
Their prime is on their rookie deal. Teams will tell you over and over that they pay for projected, not past, performance on contracts. The problem for backs is that because of the nature of their position—where it’s easy to assimilate to the league and produce quickly, but hard to last over time—their best years are usually within the four or five years on their first contract.
Because of that, the franchise tag is too good an option. If you’re a team that’s run your workhorse into the ground, and you’re unsure of what that’ll add up to in his sixth or seventh year in the league, it might make sense to go through the motions in negotiating a long-term deal, and use the tag to go year-to-year with him. If that seems harsh, well, it is. But there’s also logic to it.
Analytics have wreaked havoc on certain positions, and running back is one. It’s not an accident that you see more teams skewing toward over-investing in premium positions (QB, LT, WR, edge/pass rusher, CB), and figuring they can just make it work everywhere else. That dynamic has been tough on guards and centers, but the fact that they’re grouped with tackles for franchise-tag purposes protects them from being tagged. Ditto for off-ball linebackers, who are protected by edge rushers who happen to play from a stand-up position. There’s no such protection for backs.
The 2011 CBA took away two important levers. One was the ability for drafted players to do new deals before Year 3—running backs previously would often push for deals after two years, knowing the clock is always ticking on stars at the position. The other was strengthened holdout rules, which were strengthened again in 2020, making wildcat strikes that used to be common at the position much less practical.
So, yeah, there’s no magic wand to wave over all this. In the words of one great coach you might know, it is what it is.
(That coach, by the way, did a five-year, $25 million extension with Corey Dillon in 2005. It stands today, 18 years later, as the richest contract he’s ever given a running back.)
