MIAMI — With less than a week until teams begin to report for training camp, it remains to be seen whether Dalvin Cook will become a member of the Dolphins.
The All-Pro running back and Miami native reportedly has multiple offers from teams, including one from the Dolphins, but by all indications, he hasn’t received an offer he deems financially commensurate.
The 27-year-old Cook isn’t the only running back seemingly struggling to find a deal he deems adequate, though. Some of the best backs in the NFL are entrenched in tough negotiations over contract extensions. The Chargers’ Austin Ekeler requested a trade earlier in the offseason because of his discontent with his contract. Ekeler and Los Angeles eventually agreed to a reworked deal. And running backs who aren’t far removed from productive seasons, such as Ezekiel Elliot and Kareem Hunt, remain free agents.
Two-time Pro Bowler Melvin Gordon recently lamented the state of running backs, calling it “the worst position to play in the NFL.”
As the NFL has implemented rule changes that favor passing the ball, the priority of teams has changed. Passing rates have been on the rise while running rates have declined — although the rate of designed runs in 2022 was the league’s highest since 2011.
The passing boon has also been reflected in the positions to which teams have devoted significant cap space. Average quarterback salaries have exploded, outpacing the salary cap increase. And positions that have a direct impact on the play of quarterbacks, such as wide receiver and tight end, have also grown significantly. So have salaries for the positions defenses depend on to stop these talented playmakers, such as cornerback and edge rusher.
But salaries for running backs have lagged behind. In 2013, when the salary cap was set at $123 million, the franchise tag number — a figure determined by the average of the top five salaries at a given position over the past five years, and adjusted for the salary cap figure for a given season — for running backs was $8.2 million. This year, with the salary cap almost doubled at $225 million, the franchise tag number for backs is about $10.1 million.
Comparatively, the quarterback franchise tag number has more than doubled — from $14.9 million in 2013 to $32.4 million in 2023. The salary for wide receivers has almost doubled, from $10.5 to $19.1. The franchise tag for tight ends, once $6.1 million in 2013, has now surpassed running backs and is worth $11.3 million.
The New York Giants’ Saquon Barkley and Las Vegas Raiders’ Josh Jacobs, two of the best running backs in the league, have yet to sign their franchise tag offers.
Neither participated in offseason workouts and could be faced with having to either sign the one-year deal or forgoing their entire 2023 season.
The 49ers’ Christian McCaffrey ($16 million), Saints’ Alvin Kamara ($15 million) and Titans’ Derrick Henry ($12.5 million) are the highest-paid backs by average annual value.
During his Athletes Making Progress Together football camp last month, Barkley said that if he did not receive a long-term contract by the 4 p.m. July 17 deadline, he would consider sitting out the 2023 season. As of this week, Barkley and the Giants “remain at a stalemate” in talks, ESPN reported.
Even in the NFL draft, fewer teams are devoting top picks to the position with the league having a history of finding later-round options with similar production. Two running backs were selected in the first round of the 2023 draft — Bijan Robinson and Jahmyr Gibbs — marking the first time a back was taken before a wide receiver since 2010. The selection of Robinson was also the highest for a running back since the Giants selected Barkley at No. 2 overall in 2018.
It’s not that NFL teams have completely abandoned the run. But fewer front offices — which are increasingly run by more analytically-inclined minds — are reluctant to give significant second contracts to a position notorious for seeing diminishing returns as a player gets older. And more teams are finding similar production relying on a committee of backs to shoulder the load as opposed to one player.
In 2003, 13 running backs totaled at least 300 carries. This past season, it was only three — the Browns' Nick Chubb, Josh Jacobs and Henry.
Tony Dungy, former head coach for the Tampa Bay Buccaneers and Indianapolis Colts, entered the league during the Bo Jackson and Barry Sanders era when running backs were drafted high and teams built their franchises around them.
Nowadays, most teams want to be able to run the ball, but it’s not the No. 1 priority, according to Dungy. The priority is to find a solid quarterback and develop the passing game by investing in good receivers, tight ends and backs who can not only run but catch the ball.
“When you get a good [running] back, how much can you pour into that?,” Dungy, an analyst for NBC’s ‘Football Night in America,’ told the Miami Herald in a phone interview. “Everybody faces that now. And I think they’re coming to the conclusion [of], yes, having a good running game is important, but it’s not where I’m going to sink in a big amount of the salary cap. I’m going to save that money for other positions, and then it’s up to my personnel people to find that [running] back and develop that guy.”
Dungy experienced a similar situation during his tenure with the Colts in 2006. He was faced with a difficult decision to either sign Edgerrin James, at the time 27 years old and a four-time Pro Bowler, to a long-term deal or let him go and seek other options.
“He was our franchise guy and he had done so much for the organization and he deserved it,” Dungy said. “But then the question was, if we pay Edgerrin what he deserves, will we be able to resign our other guys? ... So we said, you know what, as painful as it is, we gotta let Edgerrin go and we’ll draft a running back at the end of the first round [and] we’ll get a good guy.”
The Colts ended up drafting running back Joseph Addai at pick No. 30 in the 2006 NFL draft. They were able to lock up other long-term skill-position players and continue to build around Hall of Fame quarterback Peyton Manning. It paid off for the Colts as they won the Super Bowl the following year over the Chicago Bears.
While the passing evolution has emphasized the need for competent quarterback play to be successful, the best teams in the NFL can still run the ball effectively. Eighteen of the last 20 Super Bowl participants ranked in the top half of the league in Football Outsiders’ rush efficiency metric in the regular season — and 12 ranked in the top 10.
Despite the Dolphins featuring a prolific passing offense that broke out under coach Mike McDaniel in 2022, Miami had the second-fewest number of rushing attempts and the ninth-lowest designed run rate in the NFL. The Dolphins were tied for 18th in yards per rush (4.3) and Football Outsiders ranked them 16th in rush efficiency.
McDaniel has said he should have been more committed to the run. The Dolphins re-signed lead backs Raheem Mostert and Jeff Wilson Jr. in free agency and drafted Texas A&M’s De’Von Achane in the offseason.
But the possibility of adding Cook, whom the Dolphins spoke to the Vikings about trading for before his release in June, still looms over a Dolphins franchise that will enter the season with championship aspirations.
Like many of the other top backs in the league, the question in adding a player with his ability is: at what cost?
“Probably every team in the NFL would like to have Dalvin Cook,” Dungy said. “But how much can [they] pay him? There’s no question in people’s mind that Dalvin Cook is a talented guy. Dalvin Cook can help them win a Super Bowl, he can help Miami. But at what price? If Miami says that the price is too heavy [or] too deep, [they] can go to the next tier guy who might be as good.”
