The Dangers Of Paying Runningbacks
One of the most interesting ways football has changed over the course of my lifetime is the Runningback’s value. When I was a kid in the 90’s, runningbacks were still a primary driving offensive force. Quarterbacks obviously mattered, wide receivers mattered, offensive lines mattered, all that jazz, but the run game drove the offense, and the run game was usually defined by one primary bellcow. The league normally had a couple future hall of famers going at the same time, like Emmitt Smith and Barry Sanders, or Terrell Davis and Marshall Faulk. But pretty much during the span of my life, everything shifted and now runningbacks feel like disposable tools.
Who is the last true Hall of Fame RB we had? Probably Adrian Peterson, who was the last non-QB to win MVP since over a decade ago. We have a few “good” and even “great” running backs in the league right now, like Derrick Henry or Saquon Barkley, but neither of them are sniffing the hall at their current rate. Dalvin Cook showed promise but is already toasted. Saquon has only had 2 good seasons. Henry, despite being probably the biggest offensive driving force for a team in the last 5 years, is currently being shopped if reports are true.
On top of that, it is widely accepted that paying RBs big money now is stupid. Zeke was a top-class RB for a few years, got his bag, and fell off a cliff. Now he’s a free agent and nobody wants him. That contract hamstrung the Cowboys last year and probably resulted in them losing Amari Cooper. The funniest part about that is that people saw it coming for miles. I remember the arguments against paying him when he was still a rookie and people looked at his usage numbers. RBs are just tools now. They used to get drafted really high. Now everyone talks about how you can snag an acceptable one in the 3rd or later and save your firsts for something more valuable, like a cornerback. Breece Hall was the consensus top running back in the draft last year. He went early second to the Jets, who basically had him as a luxury pick seeing as he was the 4th player they picked after a CB, WR, and DE. When Saquon was due for the draft I saw so many people calling him this generational talent and the best overall player in the draft…and the Giants still got laughed at for picking him second because using a top 5 pick on a running back, even one with such potential, was stupid. The Giants offered Barkley 12 mil per year according to reports, he turned it down before being tagged. While he likely could have done better on the market, I don’t think it would have been much better. RBs just aren’t valuable anymore.
So much has directly caused this. Marshall Faulk arguably started the trend of RBs being used as major passing game weapons. Faulk wasn’t a guy the Rams sent up the middle, they sent him out wide. Those more versatile types have become more important in the modern game. Saquon himself is one, following Faulk’s example. LaDanian Tomlinson was pretty good at it. Even Derrick Henry catches passes, and he’s built and moves like a stiff freight train. On top of that, you now have players like Deebo Samuel, who has completely blurred the line on what position he actually plays. What is Deebo? Deebo lives in the netherworld, belonging to no man.
Lastly, and somewhat alarmingly, quarterbacks have started to essentially turn into runningbacks themselves. Cam Newton would essentially be used as a battering ram for himself, instead of handing it off he’d just cut out the middle man and charge. Everyone likes to joke Lamar Jackson is actually an RB. Daniel fucking Jones’s one skill that sets him apart is his running ability. Russ and Rodgers made waves for a decade not by being runners but by scrambling like them anyway to find openings. Josh Allen couldn’t throw the ball for two years but he could run it! Mahomes scrambles! Taysom Hill plays every position on the court! Justin Fields is only good at scrambling (so far)! Jalen Hurts made the Eagles run game that much scarier! Why are running backs not out there screaming ‘THEY TOOK OUR JOBS”. I blame Michael Vick for all of this.
Those guys that run the offense are just gone. Replaced by committees, positional fluidity, and their own quarterbacks. Almost like how fullbacks essentially vanished as teams started to send more guys out wide. I think Adrian Peterson might be the last of the true hall of fame bellcows. People love to say the game is cyclical and that things eventually come back around as everyone constantly adjusts to what works. Maybe one day running backs will return. I don’t think it will ever be like that again. Safety concerns seem to favor not having dudes slam into each other in the trench so often and favor dudes who get shit done in space.
Also, if you want my opinion on Saquon, I am very worried about paying him. His value to the team is, in a lot of ways, his versatility in the passing game. But I worry about him for the same reasons people were worried about Zeke. Backs don’t have long shelf life anymore, and Barkley already has an unfortunate injury history. Having that much cap space tied to a fungible position is very risky. By the end of last season the offense wasn’t even relying on him as much anymore as it was on Jones. I saw too many years of bad useless Giants runningbacks to ever want him truly gone, but I worry. I worry a lot.
Broncos Fan Bias but Mike Shanahan probably deserves a mention somewhere in this. He was able to turn any random schmuck into a 1000 yard back and his legacy definitely contributed to the transition to the run game being more dependent on scheme and O line play than the sheer girth of your RB.
I’m a Giants fan, and I 100% support this take. Shanahan did with RBs what Mike Tomlin regularly does in Pittsburgh with WRs. “Oh, my top guy is gone? I have another 1k yarder in my backpocket. One second, I can’t seem to find him. Ah, got him. Buried beneath my chewing gum. Here, let me just wipe that ketchup off his helmet. There you go.”
I am incredibly biased as a 49ers fan but saying the last true Hall of Fame running back was Adrian Peterson is Frank Gore erasure. Sure he was never flashy, and his whole thing is no one remembers how good he was, but the man is 3rd all time in rushing yards and played for approximately forever.
Frank Gore was a very good player in his prime, but he was never HOF worthy. Just because he played forever doesn’t mean he belongs in the hall. Besides, Curtis Martin is already the consistent player that was never dominant archetype Hall of Famer for running backs.
This is my hottest take!! Frank Gore was never a hall of fame running back during his career. He’s the ultimate stat compiler. 16,000 yards is amazing for a RB in this age, but at no point was Frank Gore a top 3 RB during his career. He only has 1 all pro selection and never lead the league in any meaningful RB statistic. I’ve made peace with the fact that he’ll probably get in because far less-deserving guys have made it, but the difference between an actual, bonafide HoF running back like Adrian Peterson, and Frank Gore is too stark to ignore.
You could claim Gore was a stat compiler but the fact is Gore played on some of the historically worst 49er teams during his prime and still got ~1k yards per season, including a year of 1.6k is insanely impressive. His all-time yardage and durability in itself gets him a HOF ticket IMO.
It’s similar to the Argument that if Barry were on the 90’s Cowboys he would have gotten 20k yards.
The running back will make a huge come back once we finally have a generation of owners and GMs who grew up playing fantasy football. They’re gonna pay big for the guys who help them win their fantasy leagues.
Also, rules making passing more difficult would do it too. Those aren’t on the foreseeable horizon.
Fantasy Football is just play pretend GM/owner. It’s never going to have an impact on the real thing
Give it 50 years
Reminds me of baseball and wholestaffing vs long innings starters. The elite of the elite running backs (or starting pitchers) still give you that traditional advantage, but now? Guys get ground down so much faster, and it’s easier, cheaper, and more effective to just have a committee that you can plug in. And the numbers back it up, even if you have a Derrick Henry or a Sandy Alacantara, you can get 5 guys, about as 80% as good, for the same cost.
*can get 5 guys for the combined cost of 1 elite workhorse
I’d also add that you get more bang for your buck focusing on other positions. Just like in baseball atop-tier SS can give you both offensive AND defensive production that can cover up a bad day on the mound, a stacked OL can give you rock solid pass protection AND gaping holes in the run game that any decently speedy RB can hit.
Give Derrick Henry 2 more years of 1400+ yards seasons and I think I can see him in the Hall,especially if he play the Texans for 2 games a Year.
I also think RB is one of the few positions that is plagued by the “cult of the now” perpetuated by the ever-quickening media cycle. At the RB position, moreso than any other in my mind, the media loves to highlight the new, exciting faces and names and drops them very quickly. Alvin Kamara was dynamite at the beginning of his career and the media couldn’t stop talking about him. In the last two years, his yards production hasn’t gone down all that much (though his TDs definitely have), but he’s practically invisible to the media. Every facet of this sport is exploiting running backs and it’s kind of disappointing to see!
I love Dave’s depiction of Jerry as a goblin.
However, if you watch any Dallas TV news interviews, it quickly becomes apparenty that J.J. is, in fact, a ghoul from the Fallout series of video games.
Will Peterson’s off-field issues keep him out of the Hall of Fame, or at least make his entry much more difficult?
If TO didn’t get in as a first ballot. AP won’t get in for a decade.
I doubt it, honestly. Not to say that Peterson’s off-field issues weren’t terrible, but they’ve largely been forgotten about since they happened.
TO was a jerk to the people who matter when it comes to HoF voting. Peterson was an abhorrent parent but that doesn’t affect people directly as much as calling them a doodoo head.