For a moment in the offseason, Chargers running back Austin Ekeler requested a trade from the team as he negotiated a new contract. Eventually, he and the team agreed to a restructured deal that added incentives to the final year of his four-year, $24.5 million deal this season.
However, Ekeler doesn’t seem thrilled with his deal, or the state of running back contracts as a whole. On The Rich Eisen Show, Ekeler explained his perspective of the running back market.
“It comes down to comparing, let’s see what the real value added to a team is,” Ekeler said. “If I’m looking at some of the backup receivers out here that are still making more than me, that’s going to piss me off, right? I’m a little bit like, OK, wait a minute, so you’re telling me these people are the No. 3 receiver and they’re going to make more than me? And I’m the starter? I get more carries, I touch the ball more, I have more of an impact. It causes us to question, right? We’re going to fight for that.”
Ekeler’s current annual average value is $6.125 million a year, which is less than Dolphins wide receiver Cedrick Wilson and Jaguars receiver Zay Jones. That is despite Ekeler totaling over 1,600 all-purpose yards last year, while Jones didn’t reach 1,000 and Wilson had just 144.
Additionally, Ekeler led the league in combined rushing and receiving touchdowns, with 38 since 2021.
Therefore, Ekeler believes players need to hold firm and raise the market, as Giants running back Saquon Barkley and Raiders running back Josh Jacobs appear to be doing right now.
“The trend right now is not to pay running backs, so everyone is like ‘OK, we don’t have to do it either then,’” Ekeler said. “Whether it’s right, wrong or indifferent, it is what it is. It’s going to take something, whether some guy stands out again, whether it’s this year, one of these guys holds out and gets a big contract, but we need that needle to move to push us over the edge, because here’s the deal: salary cap goes up every single year. So you see new highs in every single position.”
Ekeler is a free agent at the end of the year, so another strong year could let him try to accomplish this goal, but it will most likely need to be a younger player who resets the running back market.
