Finally, we’re having one of these conversations about running backs all loosely complaining about their lack of value at a time when they might actually all get a little extra change in their pockets.
Normally, these are horribly depressing debates. Remember watching Le’Veon Bell hold out for an entire season just to re-debut with the spiraling Jets? While Bell took advantage of an overmatched general manager in over his head and pocketed almost $30 million for a handful of three-yard carries, it was hardly the kind of cudgel-wielding moment for the position he might have been looking for. It became an economic warning for all prospective general managers.
As it turns out, the running back position is not really some rapidly rising and falling asset like we make it out to be (even if, I maintain, the proliferation of Cover 2 shell defenses makes the position more of a necessity if you lack Tier 1 quarterback play). Instead, running backs are a little bit like jumper cables for your car. You either really need one at a certain moment or you don’t. Right now, certain running backs are in a position to charge premium prices to revive some dead or dying batteries.
Bill Streicher/USA TODAY Sports (Barkley); Gary A. Vasquez/USA TODAY Sports (Jacobs)
Scroll through the NFL news mill and you’ll see Saquon Barkley not ruling out a season-long holdout. Josh Jacobs tweeted that he’s digging his heels in on playing a season under the franchise tag because it’s what is best for the future of the position. Austin Ekeler requested a trade and got $2 million in incentives added to his contract.
While it’s impossible to infer a greater truth about the position at the NFL level, each of these individual cases and situations lend themselves to the running back in question having specific value that warrants an immediate increase in pay. For example, the Chargers are in a make-or-break year for both coaching staff and management. Justin Herbert is about to become the highest-paid player in the sport. He is also the second-most-prolific checkdown quarterback in the NFL. Herbert passes the ball to his running back on 11.7% of all dropbacks, according to Pro Football Focus data. Removing Ekeler, one of the most sure-handed backfield receivers in the NFL, from the equation and simply replacing him with a different player because the position fails to yield long-term value would be ludicrous (as we wrote before he got his extension). Herbert’s rhythm would be severely disrupted. Hence, the Chargers reworked the deal.
Daniel Jones is not nearly as frequent a check-downer as Herbert, but almost a quarter of his attempts were on play-action passes or run-pass option throws, according to data from Pro Football Reference. While I understand that you don’t need a good running back to make play-action effective (I would imagine most coaches now believe that it is the split second of indecision the action creates in a defender that is all they’re hoping for), Barkley is also an incredibly efficient and powerful runner who doubles as one of the great pass protectors in the NFL. The Giants, according to Sports Info Solutions, spent the second-most time of any team under “pressure.” In those situations, they were the fifth-best team in terms of expected points added per down (points above the statistical average). Are they willing to test, in a critical year for the newly extended Jones, how much Barkley is assuaging the impact of that pressure? Would they like to be the most-pressured team in the NFL, without a running back who caught 57 passes last season and has caught as many as 91 in a single season?
Jimmy Garoppolo, like Jones, is not a quarterback who frequently uses check downs. But the ways in which a powerful running game have aided Garoppolo in his career cannot be questioned. In the cocoon that is the 49ers’ offense, perhaps the best-designed running game since Kyle Shanahan’s father, Mike, was winning Super Bowls alongside offensive line guru Alex Gibbs, Garoppolo became the model of efficiency. Certainly, having Deebo Samuel, George Kittle and Christian McCaffrey helps in that regard. That said, it’s almost impossible to argue that Garoppolo can match those numbers now in Las Vegas without the services of a running back who, according to NFL’s Next Gen stats, added more than a half yard per touch when in the lineup, doing so regularly against eight-man boxes.
It wouldn’t be outrageous to think the Raiders’ staff, like the Chargers’, is in a bit of a make-or-break situation this year. Removing Jacobs from that offense in the immediate future would cave an increased amount of pressure on a quarterback who is recovering from an offseason foot surgery and is already one of the least-mobile signal-callers in the NFL.
I’m not saying that all of these running backs are entitled to four-year extensions. I think, deep down, they know the limitations of their position and the financial realities of football economics. (Not every running back can make the same argument for a better contract. Four-time Pro Bowler Dalvin Cook was deemed expendable by the Vikings, and perhaps rightfully so, in his specific situation where they deemed a backup with upside as equally valuable and run the kind of scheme that backs up their thinking). But, like Ekeler, who was able to at least arm-twist his way into a few more dollars, I think the situation is ripe for both Jacobs and Barkley to at least earn a little bit more than they were slated to via the franchise tag.
We are not in an unprecedented era of running back power, even after the position saw two players taken in the first round of the 2023 NFL draft, both in the top 15. We are, however, in a pocket of time in which a few teams have made specific players so valuable to their day-to-day operating procedure that they must compensate them or visibly suffer.
Deciding not to cave would be akin to leaving home on a long drive without those jumper cables.
