The Ringer NFL Show - What Is Going to Happen to the Running Back Position?

Episode Date: July 28, 2023

In the final episode of their offseason series, Ben and Steven look at the current state of the running back position, and the frustrations voiced by the likes of Austin Ekeler and Josh Jacobs over the lack of fair compensation. They look at why teams have stopped handing out long-term contracts to RBs (03:39), and why Derrick Henry and Christian McCaffrey are outliers (17:43). Then, they highlight the short career length for the position and the potential solutions that may be necessary to alleviate the issue (31:00). Hosts: Ben Solak and Steven Ruiz Producer: Eduardo Ocampo Additional Production Supervision: Arjuna Ramgopal and Conor Nevins Musical Elements: Devon Renaldo Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Right now on the Ringer game on fee and all throughout the entire month of August, the East Coast bias boys are getting you ready to bet the NFL this season. We're going through each and every single division and revealing our favorite futures, predicting division winners, and even giving you some award winners. Do we think the Kansas City Chiefs will repeat or will they be the throne? Tune in now to find out on Spotify or wherever you get your podcast. I'm Ben Solac and this is the Ringer NFL show. I am joined today as always.

by the magnanimous Stephen. And this is our final episode in our big offseason question series. And we didn't really know what we wanted our last topic to be. And then all the running backs got mad and it made it obvious. The simmering frustrations that have been held by NFL running backs over their compensation and their usage reached a boiling point last week when both giants running back, Sapewan Barkley and Raiders running back Josh Jacobs, did not receive multi-year contracts before the franchise tag deadline expired.

Jacobs and Barclay, along with many other top backs in solidarity, took to Twitter. They also all met on, like, a Zoom call to discuss the plans, which is fun. We're going to talk about that. The massive disparity between how NFL teams use running backs and how NFL teams pay running backs is not going away. So today, on the Rigger NFL show,

what is going to happen to NFL running backs? Steven, we are in my favorite era of NFL, my favorite, and I should say era, My favorite time of the year, which is training camp, clip time, baby. It is, it's time for some routes with no pads on against air. And that tells us everything we need to know about players entering season. I'm in on Jemir Gibbs. I'm in on Calvin Ridley.

I'm in on Kyle Pitts. Everybody who looks good movie with no pads on, baby, it's their time. You're so genuine. I can't tell if you're being sarcastic or anything. Like, it sounds, the word sounds sarcastic. I absolutely love it I don't love it in the sense that I'm like wow I take this seriously

I just love it because last month I was clicking home on X.com and scrolling through the new tweets don't call it that it was just like here's my fantasy rankings here's a Barbie Oppenheimer

me might don't get like whatever and now it's like slow motion Mac Hollins touchdown catch against nobody it's oh baby we're living Here we go. Are you reveling in the, like, the negative ones? Like, did you see Bryce Young's first pass and training camp was bad at the line?

Which, like, doesn't matter. Doesn't matter at all, but it is hilarious. No, see, this is, this is the yin and yang of this podcast. This is the difference. This is why our friendship works, because I'm not reveling in the negative ones. And I know you are exclusively reveling in the negative ones. You saw that, like, you know, oh, like David Bakhtiari is still coming back from his ACL injury three years later. and you were just like, well, well, I'll be able to tweet about this in November.

Like, those are your vibes, not mine. I can't wait for a Mac 5 interception practice. I'm going to gritty in my living room. I did see Desmond Redder two picks on day one, and I immediately hit it with a, I pretend I do not see it, meme. But I don't need that. I don't need that in my life, baby. It's August.

He's going to be perfect. It's not even August. It's July. Holy smokes. All right. We're actually, we're not doing our favorite training camp, clip breakdowns, which would be fun.

We're doing running backs. I want to start by giving a clear definition of what's happened to running back contracts over the last few years. Because I think a big thing that gets missed when we're talking about Jacobs and we're talking about Barclay and we're talking about Austin Ackler, the Chargers running back, who wanted an extension and didn't get one and all their frustrations is that three years ago, running back's got paid, man. Like, it was 2020 in April, Christian McCaffrey, who was 24 at the time, coming off of a season of over a thousand rushing yards and a thousand receiving yards, signed a four-year-sixth million-dollar extension. This was the first $16 million running back in league history. He beat out Ezekiel Elliott for the biggest contract then at the time. And off of his extension, we saw Derek Henry, who was the league's leading rusher in 2019, signed a four-year-50 million dollar extension in 2020. money. He was 25 at the time. In September, Alvin Camara, five years, $75 million.

He was 25. And then Dalvin Cook a little bit later. He signed a four year, or he signed a five year, excuse me, $63 million extension, put him like right above Derek Henry. All four of those contracts were like top six running back contracts at the time. This was functionally market resetting. This was in 2020, which, like, we didn't really know how COVID was going to like fully hit the cap yet, but COVID was hitting the cap. Like, we knew that money was going to be down too. and running backs were getting contracts. The problem is this. Of the four guys I just named, three of them, Henry, McCaffrey, and the Camara,

still currently have the top three running back contracts in the league, and the fourth one, Cook, got cut this year. He would have been third if he didn't get straight released by the Minnesota Vikings. And so while generally, I think prevailing wisdom and new, you know, data-driven looks, at running back have made it such that the position is being devalued over time. Like, it feels like it's been happening for more than three years. It feels like it's been five years, six years, seven years that we've been talking about this. DeMarco Murray and like all these moments in the 2010s, Todd Gurley, whatever.

The NFL really only made like a big tectonic shift a couple of years ago within the last three years. Nick Chubb had an opportunity to sign extension in 2021. He couldn't break Derek Henry's number. Aaron Jones couldn't break Derek Henry's number four years, $48 million. and then took this offseason a legitimate pay cut, not a restructure, a pay cut. He was due $16 million in base salary, and they cut that down to $11 million. And he said, he doesn't consider it a pay cut because it's the most he's ever made in one season.

He said, these guys in the locker room, these are my brothers, the people upstairs believed in me. He said he wanted to be a team player. He didn't want to be greedy. Like, he gave all this nice team positive language. But he gave the Packers back $5 million. to stay with the Packers, right? Like this, like, talk about slamming on the brakes of an extension and changing direction about a player just two years later.

So Chubb and Jones, like, fail to reset the market. And then obviously we have Barclay, Josh Jacobs and Austin Eckler right now who can't even get into the market. Jacobs, I think, his story being the most impactful, Josh Jacobs right now is 25. He had 340 carries, 1,600 yards, and 12 touchdowns. Which, when Derek Henry got his extension, he was 25. He was coming off of 300 carries, 50.

100 yards and 16 touchdowns. The Titans gave that dude four years, 50 million. The Raiders won't give Jacobs Jack Diddley, right? They gave him the franchise tag. And the production and the age are extremely similar. So that's where we're at. There was a change in the last three years in terms of running backs being paid,

the lead being willing to pay guys at the top of the market. So Stephen, I ask you why? Why did the league change the respect from paying running backs? What made the cash stop flowing? Well, I think one of the factors that can't be ignored is the growing influence of analytics. It feels like every day a team is hiring a new staffer, a new guy, a new woman with the analytics background.

And I think we're kind of seeing like, I would say that momentum probably started a few years before 2020, but maybe there's been a lag effect, whether it's like getting more respect in the building. I think that's something, a fight that they've had to endure as they've entered these rooms and have more of a voice. But what's kind of odd is I feel like the last two years since 2020 has what's happened on the field at least has kind of provided an argument for the running game mattering a little bit more.

Like I feel like the conversation we had during the play action episode, for instance, it was all about how like, yes, like maybe the running game was like the importance of the running game was kind of falling off. But over the last couple years, as we've seen more too high, we've seen defenses adjust to these past happy offenses. I feel like the running game is back. I don't know if it is, but I feel like the running game is back. Now it's a separate conversation between whether the running game is back and rather the running back position is back. And I think that disconnect, because I think if you ask analytics people who are probably the driving force behind the market being where it's at, I think they would tell you

that just because they say running backs don't matter doesn't necessarily mean the running game doesn't matter. Their argument for running backs not mattering is that they are replaceable. their production is replaceable because it's more influenced by people around them, by the offensive line, by the play caller, by even the quarterback. And I think that sentiment is more widely accepted today than it was even in 2019 by the public, by front offices. And I think it's just the growing influence of analytics.

I do wonder how that change as these new environments, like schematic environments with teams playing too high and lighter boxes. like we covered in that pod, passing efficiency is going down and running efficiency is going up by EPA. I do wonder if the new data coming out over these past a few years is going to influence not like a total pendulum swing, but maybe a little one. And we may be running backs in a few years will have an easier time getting paid. But right now, I think that's what it is. I think it's a lag effect from all from analytics voices getting louder over the last, I would say what, five years, five, six years. Even more probably. Like in the 2010s, you're just like, all right, like Todd

Gurley ran for a ton of yards. So we're going to pay Todd Gurley. We drafted as equal Elliott super high and he ran for 20 yards. We're going to pay Zika Elliott. But at the time, like analytics people in the media, analytics people in front offices. And then like us and us is like football analysts in the media who are like working with data and like, you know, listening to guys who are actual like code heads. We're learning like, okay, like you pay Todd Gurley, but Todd Gurley probably doesn't have as much impact over Todd Gurley's production as we thought he did. And that's the critical thing there. Todd Gurley ran for a lot of yards. And Todd Gurley's very talented. And so it's easier to go one to one and say Todd Gurley ran for a lot of yards because

Todd Gurley's very talented. When in reality, Todd Gurley ran for a lot of yards because the offensive line in front of him was really good, because the scheme in terms of getting that running game out on the field and how they ran outside zone with the Rams. So like the Cowboys offensive of Wine, 2016, 2017 for Ezeka Elliott, like, because of the Office of the line talent, because of the system, that's why Todd Gurley produced. That's why Zika Elliott produced. And then on top of it, they are very talented. And so they, they add something there, right? Their talent is not a total zero. It's just a much smaller percentage of the pie than I think we realize. And so as NFL teams, like you said,

it's a lagging indicator, as NFL teams kind of catch up to that idea of like, oh, if we have, we're the Browns, and we have Bill Callahan, and we have a really good offensive line, we can just kind of like put anybody back there and run the ball fairly well. But then the Browns pay Nick Chubb, right? And some of that's a culture thing.

Some of that's a, Nick Chubb is a good dude and is a leader for us. Like, Nick Chub is like very underpaid. Nick Chubb's like three years, $36 million. Like he is, you know, like he absolutely should have in terms of like a talent perspective,

reset the market over Derek Henry and Alvin Camerra and maybe even McAfrey, but he didn't. So, like, Chubb's still underpaid. But, you know, the Brown's paying because of the culture thing. In general, though, like, I think teams are catching up to that idea of, like, if we have it to be offensive line and we have good schematics, we can run the ball with whomever, right? Eagles, I think, an example here, right?

Miles Sanders goes to the Panthers. And they're just like, yeah, can any game over, shot Benny, Ben, D'i, D'Andres if something's going to work. You know what I'm saying? So you have, you have that sensation. When you widen it out from running back to running game, us running the football, I very much agree with you. Like, the running game, you can't play football without running the ball, right?

And I think that where a lot of the conversation goes too far is where, like, you know, analytics can get unfairly simplified into like pass all the time, pass on first and 10. But there's a reason for that simplification. The analytics tends to be huge champions of throwing the football. And I think NFL teams know and are right in their know. that you have to be able to run the football. You have to be able to run it on first and 10. You have to have some semblance of run past balance,

making up some number of like, you know, we need to have at least 53 carries plus completions. We need to have at least like, you know, on games in which is you've got like rushed for 100 yards. Like those are made up. Those are bad. But in general, there's some balance that has to be achieved. And as a team,

you can devote as little or as much to the running game as you want, right? Like the Falcons, just from like a personnel perspective and a money perspective, have devoted an insane amount. amount to their running game, right? The bills have barely devoted anything to their running game in terms of the offensive linemen they've acquired and the money that they've spent on them and the running backs and so on and so forth. You can devote as little or as much to it as you want. It doesn't change the fact that you're going to be able to, you're going to have to do it at some

point. You have to be able to do it. And there's going to be certain games where you have to do it well. And that's why like when I think running backs then look at the landscape and say, okay, everyone agrees the running game matters. Some of us over here were drafted in the first round and carry the ball 300 times, can we get some money, please? Like, that to them is very intuitive, even though you and I, and probably they also know the kicker, which is that their talent doesn't actually impact the success of the running game nearly as much as we think it should. Okay, the success of the running game, but here's where I would push back.

First of all, we're talking in absolutes based on like R squareds of like 0.3. my problem with how you can you explain R squared of 0.3 to the people, which was a sick burn, but I just feel like it was not going to land on a lot of folks. I mean, these people didn't pay attention to math at the end of high school. This is very basic math. You do the scatter

plot. I don't know well enough to explain regression and lines of regression. The correlation, these are small correlations which are statistically significant, but not to the point where we could... There's still weak correlations, yeah. Where we could just make

definitive statements and then never address them again. Like, oh, running backs don't matter in 2019. Let's never revisit it again. That's not pay anybody ever again. And I do think there's something to the fact that defensive coaches think running backs matter. And that matters because, like, why are we saying balance is important? Why are we saying you have to be balanced and have to be able to run the ball?

It's because you have to get certain structures from the defense. You have to see certain coverages. You have to see certain fronts to get those explosive plays. I think having that psychological benefit still impacts the offense. Like having Todd Gurley on the field compared to C.J. Anderson in 2018 may have changed something in the defensive coordinator's mind. And I think that little psychological benefit matters because, like you said, oh, yeah, we know we don't need a star running back.

We could just get Bill Callahan and build a great offensive line. One, there's only one, Bill Callahan. And two, isn't every team trying to build a great offense line all the time? It's just hard to do. So you can kind of fake it by just giving or by putting Derek Henry on the field, even though the offensive line stinks, which it has in Tennessee, that hasn't stopped defenses from loading up the box against them. So I think there's these psychological factors that are never going to be really,

I don't want to say never. That's not true. Like, I don't think we can measure them enough at this point. And I think we're getting the tools and we're gaining more and more tools with like player tracking and all that. And I think like just analysis is getting smarter on the whole. But as that happens, I feel like I've seen more advanced analytics kind of pointing to the fact that maybe running backs matter a little bit more than we believed. Like when you see like big datable conclusions drawn from actual tracking data and not just like misleading box count data that doesn't really capture proper context, you're seeing that. running backs maybe do matter a little bit more than we realized.

Yeah. I think, no, I think that's a very good transition point. I think that I think the running game unequivocally and uneffect, in arguably matters. You have to be able to run the football. And people can say, oh, it doesn't matter that much. You think, okay, whatever, but you still got to do it. It's got to be a part of the offense.

I think those folks who would say, like, all right, well, the running game kind of matters, but the running back doesn't really matter at all. I think that's kind of the next step that they go to. And when people see that running backs aren't being paid, they go, oh, it's because running backs don't matter. And I want to talk about the cases in which running backs do matter, the skills that they bring that matters, the particular body types, the particular roles that they fill that matters, and how that translates into the position getting paid in years forward. First, you know what else matters, Stephen? Advertisements.

Advertisements, baby. Here we go. Okay, so let's say something very simple, which is that like Derek Henry is different than other running backs. Like, just period. And I remember when Henry went out in the end of the 2021 season, right for the back half of the year, and he had the foot injury. And the Titans running game stayed fine with like Don Deformin and Don Trell Yilliard. And the Titans' play action passed a game completely and totally changed.

And some of it was voluntary. Like maybe it didn't have to change as much as they were changing it. They were changing it themselves. But their play action game completely and totally changed. And the clear missing piece is the fact that they didn't have Henry. that moment right there illustrates who you were talking about, which is like, it doesn't really matter who the other 10 guys on the field are

and what you're doing as an offense. When it even sees 22 in the backfield, they're going to behave a little bit differently than when they don't. Like, that's just, that's because Derek Henry is 6, 4, 24, 245 pounds and has a stiff arm that was given to him by the Christian God, right? Like, it's just, I like,

this is fundamentally a different guy, right? I think there's also like a chicken and egg situation there where I think you can, could make the argument statistically that like running backs, if you change a running back like box count numbers don't necessarily change all the time. But like let's say Derek Henry, for example, when he's on the field, it's usually first and 10. It's an early down. Defenses are expecting to run. They're playing certain coverages. When you take him off and put another guy on, like the tendencies change. The data that the teams are working off. Yeah, that's what I'm talking about. Yeah.

the 11 dudes on defense when they see 22 in the backfield on first and 10 are thinking different things. They're behaving in a different way than if 22 weren't in the backfield. But I just think like some stat people might push back against that notion because it doesn't show up in the data. But I think I would argue that it's not going to unless you factor in those like those, I guess game plan, the mentality that's forged into these players' mind based on the game plan, based on everything they've been hearing from coaches all week long. And I just don't think that's easy to measure. Right.

And that's why I'm saying what's going on in those 11 players' heads is different. Like that's why I'm framing it that way, right? Think about like, let's let's do this. Let's play a game. Who was that DB that Derek had replanted? Was it Marcus Peters or Trey White? Who was it? There's the one famous vote of him.

Josh Norman, right? Exactly. You can't tell me that when Josh Norman, lines up over the outside receiver who's like tight to the ball and he looks in the backfield and he sees Dung to Foreman he doesn't go

we're good like it just he just does right how he how he plays is now going to change because his perspective on what the offense is likely to do has changed to me that's that's like fundamental that's why I bring up Henry as an example just because notorious reputation it's known how he plays it's known how he hits you

it's now he arrives into contact let's step off of Henry for a second Christian McCaffrey is the guy that like always gets put somewhere else in this conversation. So it's like running back value not good, running back's running it, that sucks. But Christian McCaffrey, like Christian McCaffrey, like Christian McCaffrey is different because of the value he brings as a receiver. And this is where the conversation actually kind of like bothers me at times because targeting a running back sucks. It's not good. Running back targets are bad.

When you go and you look at pass attempts targets purely. as divided by the position of the receiving player. Targets to tight ends are successful 53% of the time. To wide receivers, 52% of the time. To running backs, they were successful 44% of the time last season. But I expected points added to tight ends, positive plus 1 5, wide receivers plus 0.19. And to running backs, negative.04, right?

And the reason is just very simple is depth of target. You just, you don't throw the ball downfield to running backs. You throw it downfield to receivers downfield with tight ends, from a league-wide perspective, targets to running backs are shallow. They're underneath. McCaffrey starts to present a little bit of a difference, right? This is where, like, a McCaffrey becomes different than, like, an Austin Echler,

who also caught the ball a ton, right? Okay, they both catch the ball a lot. But when you look at, like, how they're used, there's a dramatic difference. Christian McCaffrey, when he was lined up in the slot last year, between the Panthers and the Niners was targeted on 21% of those snaps. So on 21% of the snaps in which he was lined up in the slot,

he was targeted. For Austin Echler, that number is eight, right? Like, Echler's getting all of his targets coming out of the backfield. He's getting all of his targets on freaking swing patterns and screens. But Caffrey actually, functionally, is a receiver.

And so when we talk about running back, receiving receptions, as like, oh, that's how they can change their value. Like, oh, Sequin Berkeley deserves to be paid more than Josh Jacobs deserves to be paid because Berkeley catches the ball more and the passing game is what matters. I actually disagree with that. Unless you're lining Barclay up as a wide receiver and having him run wide receiver routes and do wide receiver things, then really, like, the fact that he's catching more passes

than Jacobs doesn't move the needle for me too much because you just, you want your quarterback to be throwing to receivers anyway. McCaffrey is the exception that proves the rule. where he can actually do the wide receiver stuff. Otherwise, I think the whole, like, we're going to solve running back value by having them catch the ball more means you're just going to have Philip Rivers' 2009 offense,

which was fine, but you don't want to be throwing the ball behind the scrimmage that much. Yeah, I really think, like, the evolution that would have to happen at the position is one that we saw happen at the fullback position. And, like, those guys didn't turn into fullbacks that, like, lined up in the same. spots and caught passes, they turned into H-backs. They turn into second tight ends you could block.

And I think I agree with you. You need, if you're going to be a running back who, like this receiving back who actually provides like receiver type value, you better be able to line up at like X, Z. You better be able to line up in the slot. You better be able to run every route. You better be able to run a post route. Like I think like Debo is is the model for that. And that's just unrealistic given the framework we currently have for the position and what's expected out of the position. I just think that's tough to do. So I'm with you there. Like McCaffrey, you can't convince me that the 49ers offense does what it does late last year without making that trade from McCaffrey.

I thought he was the most important player on the team. But at the same time, he was still a guy playing in the Kyle Shanahan offense. And like the things we say about the quarterback position also apply to him. I would argue that like those running backs, those like dual threat guys maybe could provide more value as evidenced by McCaffrey's stint with the 49ers last year. I'm putting it on the coaches. Like I don't think the coaches are getting the most out of these running backs and the most out of these talents. I think they can, they could stand to be a little more creative in how they deploy them and what they have them do. And until that happens, I agree with you.

I don't think like just being able to catch 70 balls a year isn't going to make you worth 15. million dollars a year just if you're still a running back yeah when you start to poke around where running backs get their targets where they get their depth you actually start to see that right like uh you brought up shanan mcalfrey with the niners right had a depth of target of 2.16 which is like really shallow but was 13th among running backs last year uh when he was with the panthers it was behind line of scrimmage right it was it was a negative number so my cat like when when shanahan acquired McCaffrey, it wasn't to use him the same way he was being used with the Panthers. They were using him differently in terms of how it was a receiver.

And the way that Shanahan used McCaffrey is the way that previously he had been using other running backs, right? Tal Usick among running backs is seventh in league in Adon, right? And you also find Alec Engold, who's the Miami Dolphins fullback, Mike McDaniel offense, at 2.45. You find Andrew Beck, right? You find C.J. Ham at third and A.D. And second in A.D.

among running backs. These are fullbacks. These are guys who are being used as like play action and then go dudes, right? And so you have like this sort of a model that's being used, but you also have Jeff Wilson. Jeff Wilson last year was 14th among running backs in Adot when he was with the 49ers. And then he went to Miami and the numbers went down. So what you have here is this. Like let's let's lay it out very clearly. Chris McAfree is a very good receiving back, but the Panthers are kind of using him as an Austin Echler. Kyle Shanahan uses his receiving backs, uses backs to, as receivers in smart ways.

He lines them up in the slot. He actually sends them down the field. Kyle Shanehan goes and gets Christian McCaffrey to use him that way. Why? Because Christian McCaffrey is more talented than the other backs, is more valuable than the other backs.

And that's like our running back value conversation right there. It's what Christian McCaffrey does. You can ask other backs to do, but Christian McCaffrey does it better. And that's why, like, the Niners' offense, passing game-wise, takes a huge jump when McCaffrey arrives, even as Brock Birdie is the one that has to take over

is because McAfrey was fundamentally better at what Kyle Shanahan was asking his running backs to do. The problem we run into is that Christian McCaffrey's one of one and Kyle Shanahan is one of one, right? And so it becomes really challenging to map this on to like,

how is Nate Hackett going to use Breece Hall who was like a good receding back who got lined up out wide and in the slot a decent amount last year. Like, are you going to see this actually proliferate? I'm not sure because so much like, all we do is talk about Shanahan's offense and how it should proliferate. And the league doesn't catch up as quickly as maybe they should.

But I would say like running back usage is a thing that's easier to replicate. Like I could just be like, let's have our running back run those same routes. Whereas like Shanahan's offense as a whole is a little more delicate to maintain. I do think like this stint with Shanahan might lay out a blueprint for smarter coaches around the league to get more out of their receiving backs. I look at New York's usage of Sequin Barclay, and I want more. Like, their usage of him as a receiver is, like, totally boring. It's the basic running back stuff. Like, he's catching swing passes.

He's barely lining up in the slot. He's barely lining up out wide. They're using him as you would use, I don't know, say, like Nick Chubb, for instance, who's not like the best receiving back. I, I, if you, if we see the 49ers really have a big year on offense and we see Christian McCaffrey put up. these crazy numbers where people are putting him in the MVP conversation and everyone else that looks at stats is laughing at those people.

But he has a monster year. I could see that start to spread around the league. And maybe we will see running backs A dot rise up a little bit. That certainly happened with like the Sean McVay and Shannon and stuff. Now, the question is, do you have a coach that's capable of actually like calling those plays well and putting those guys in positions when the defense starts to make adjustments? That's another question. But I could see like this being an influential partnership in San Francisco.

Yeah. Barclay took about the same percentage of his snaps in the backfield as Austin Echler did, about 90%. Echler was targeted on 31% of his snaps when he was in the backfield. Barclay only 18.5%. Barclay was only lined up out as a slot receiver on 4% of snaps. Austin Echler was like 7%. So he was being used even less emphatically as a receiver than Echler was.

And like when people, again, like when people talk about Barclay and like why Barclay should get paid, they go like, oh, because he's a three down back, because he's a receiving back. That just does not jive with how he was used. And until he starts getting used, like the Shanahan backs get used, the value he adds as a receiver is not enough to justify like, oh, he should be paid over Jacobs. Right. Like he's, he's more than a two down back. He's a three down back. Not really. Like, and that sounds dumb.

It sounds like I'm like defending, like not paying the backs. But it's just saying we're missing the mark when we talk about receiving value. What we need to talk about is like, do you fundamentally change the structure of the offense, which I think is like Derek Henry in terms of how he runs and Christian McCaffrey in terms of his three-down threat? And then if you're not fundamentally changing the structure of the offense, what do you do from a running perspective, Nick Chub, Jonathan Taylor, right, talent-wise, that elevates you above other guys. And that's where like I want to bring up Josh Jacobs here and really start honing the conversation on him

because Jacobs is the one who looks like it's actually going to hold out and how he relates to like Nick Chubb and Jonathan Taylor and Derek Henry and these true runners. But first, Stephen, I want to advertise. No, I want other people to advertise things for me to buy. Okay, so Nick Chubb got asked about all this this week at training camp, and I really, really, really like what he said.

The biggest thing is that we're the only position that our production hurts us the most. If we go out there and run for 2,000 yards with so many carries, the next year they're going to say, you're probably worn down. That's the biggest thing I took from it. It's tough. It hurts just to go out there and do good. It hurts us at the end of the day.

I really like what Chubb said here because these quotes are from piece by Zach Jackson, the athletic. He goes on to talk about why it was important to him to show up to the Zoom meeting with all of these top backs, when he wanted to, like, show up for Najee Harris and J.K. Dobbins and Jonathan Taylor and all these guys who are going to get paid at some point. Because when he's talking about this, like the 2000 carries hurts us. It's what hurts us the most if we go out there. He's very clearly talking about the running backs as a collective.

Like this is what they're discussing, is that the common thread in all their contract negotiations is that they run into these problems of coaches and general managers and decision makers talking about the fact that their touches are to their detriment. I think this deserves like a moment of perspective. Josh Jacobs led the league last. year with 393 touches. He barely beat out Derek Henry, who was 382, and then there was

Saquan Berkeley at 352. The highest non-running back in terms of total touches last year was Jalen Hertz with 165. He was 36th in the league in total touches. I think everybody would know that like Jacobs and Henry and Berkeley and Chubb are all touching the ball way more than everybody else. But like, Cam Acres had 201 touches, 30th most in the league. Tyler Alton. I was a lot. Alger was 23rd, David Montgomery was 20th, Damien Pierce was 18th, like Leonard Fournett was 15th, Ramandre Stevenson was 11th. Like, these guys are, there are backs from multiple teams like Jeff Wilson and Rahim Moster, AJ Dylan and Aaron Jones, who are touching the ball more than anybody else on their team is, right? The highest ranking, uh, ranking in terms of touches

for wide receivers was Justin Jefferson, who had 132, right? Like, that's less than a third of the touches that Josh Jacobs was getting over the course of the season. That's a banana's disparity. And so when we go to talk about running back value, the thing that we end up talking about is, can you stay on the field for a long time? Can you accumulate all of these touches? Can you consistently carry the ball 400 times and not break down?

And the answer is emphatically no from a position-wide perspective, from a larger data perspective. Timor Riske of PFF did an age curve study where like, at what age do most positions produce the best? And he found that for most positions, the majority of value that players were producing was after their age 25 season. Right? It was, okay, like, in their 26 and they're 27, they're 28, they're 28, and they're 20. That's when they're really, really, really producing. For perspective, running back, it was way heavily skewed towards their before age 25 seasons. They're providing value when they're 23, 24, 25.

The present of total wins over replacement generated by players 30 and above is like 18% for wide receiver, 19% for tight end, 18% for linebacker. For running backs, it's 8%. You expire so quickly at this position because of the volume that's put on you. And that's why Jacobs is in the position that he's in. It's because he was good enough and healthy enough to touch the ball 393 times. He was good enough to warrant that level of usage and continue to be valuable and continue to be productive. And because he did that, Nick Chubb makes the point that he's now less likely to be paid. And that's like the vicious cycle is that, as Chubb said, our production here hurts us the most.

And that's what makes it so hard to even have the conversation we've been having this whole pod, like talking about how their production affects the team's performance. Because these are guys that are just taking just massive amounts of physical damage every weekend. And it becomes like a human discussion. Like talking about this in terms of positional value, it just feels inhumane when you, when you think about like what this job does to their bodies, how quickly their, how quickly their, your usefulness kind of expires in the eyes of NFL teams. So, like, I don't even, like, even Chris McCaffrey, for instance, who has earned a lot of money,

who seems to be the exception to the rule when it comes to, like, value in what he provides to the offense, even he's not, like, providing these great margins compared to, like, his backups. But still, I have a hard time accepting the fact that, like, running backs, I guess, don't affect, don't move the needle too much. and that being a justification for not paying them. It becomes a human thing to me. It becomes a labor issue. And I think like it needs to,

that's where the conversation needs to go. We don't need to hear about like the EPA and well, actually like running back targets don't matter. Like these guys are human. Was that my voice right there in the running back targets don't matter? It's telling it was my voice. It was you plus all of the stat people on Twitter combined. But yeah, I think like so the solutions aren't going

to me, like the solutions aren't going to be like football-based. Like, oh, play a different position, which, like, oh, if I was a five-star running back going to Alabama, I would just switch my position. Yeah, good luck telling Nick Saban, hey, you know how you put in all that time to recruit me to play this position that's very important at the college level? I'm going to switch to a defense event. So teach me how to do that for the next four years. Yeah, you know what I want to go over some of those potential solutions, right?

And just talk about like what makes sense with them and what doesn't and what the potential holdups are just so we can like, look at them and say, maybe this, maybe that. Here's what this would mean for the position. Here's what that would mean for the position. But I agree with you. Like, it should be said before we start transitioning to solutions. We should say this very clearly.

The Bears gave Cole commit today $50 million over four years, right? We're recording this on Wednesday. And the Bears gave Cole commit. It was their starting time, $50 million over four years. I'm very happy for Cole. Second round pick. He's been healthy. He takes a huge majority of the snaps.

for them, solid. Cole comeets, not one of the top 10 tight ends in the league, right? Like, he just isn't. He's just, like, somewhere between, like, 10 and 15 in terms of, of the tight end rankings. NFL teams have $50 million over four years in their couch cushions. They do, right? And that's Derek Henry's contract. That's the third best running back contract right now.

He got $50 million over four years. It's just, it, the NFL teams have it jangling around in their pockets. You simply cannot. get remotely close to convincing me that if a team, that if the Raiders gave Josh Jacobs $50 million over four years, they would be dramatically ruining their ability to win games in any way, in any way affecting their team negatively. It just isn't the case.

If Josh Jacobs is asking for $80 million over four years, it's a different conversation. But again, $50 million over four is the third best running back contract right now. The Raiders can make Josh Jacobs, the top five paid running back, and it would not move the needle of their, this is a good analytics team making the right decisions to win games. It wouldn't move the needle at all, right? Like the Giants, like Joe Shea and the GM of the Giants,

is getting heaps of praise lavished on him because he got Saquo and Barclay to actually, it's being framed as he got Saquan Barclay to report to camp by giving him like an extra $1.5 million in incentives. It's a horrific framing. like he tossed Sequin this like measly bone which $1.5 million is is a

measly bone on the NFL scale and oh what's savvy and good general managing I strongly disagree Sequin Barclay is the it was the franchise cornerstone of your team for three terrible years and he watched you pay Daniel Jones in front of him and you gave him this contract

and then you give a huge extension to Andrew Thomas and you're not wrong from a player value perspective when you look at it on a spreadsheet but you are absolutely incorrect when you look at it at an individual value perspective, which is not going to win you games. I acknowledge that, but it is going to play in the locker room.

It is going to matter in your relationships with bargaining with players to come. So, like, I don't, it would not be challenging for an NFL team to appropriately pay their top running backs relative to the existing market and also not hurt their ability to win football games. And the fact that they don't do it is miserly. And the fact that it's even being used

like that's the argument is like teams are competitive and they want to win games and we think that paying running backs is not the way to win games. Well if that's the case like your solution is right there in your argument. Make running back pay like separated

from the salary cap. Make it so it's not like a competitive thing that gives you a competitive advantage. I think the running backs coming together and unionizing like that might be the solution because I think if you can come up with some type of fun that's based usage because like the Nick Chubb point is the point. Like that's the main point. They don't get paid because you use them and you wear them down and then you discard them and replace them.

I think the more usage they get, the more money they should be entitled to. And if you don't tie that to the salary cap where teams are going to be like, oh, we don't want to pay him. We don't want to use him now because of that. Like that's how you get more money in these guys' pockets. And I think just like coming up with artificial solutions that only apply to this position, while they may seem like, I don't know. We're just not used to them so people aren't comfortable accepting those. Like, let's say we let running backs leave after two years in college instead of having to wait a third year in college. Like, yeah, maybe that's unfair to the other positions and maybe that would cause other issues.

But like, it's an obvious solution to one of the problems, getting them paid early. Or setting up like some type of hazard pay tied to carries is another way to get more money in their pocket. Like, the NVA has so much money laying around. And we've seen them put money into player safe. issues. I feel like this is a player safety issue. Like that's because player safety is one of the factors in why we don't pay running backs. So I think it's easy to justify. That would be my solution, my genre solution would be something that's not tied to the salary cap that gets money into their pockets and that pays them for maybe it's not something that provides a value, but it's,

it's a dangerous role that they play that is integral to the sport. Like you need a running game. like we said at the top of the show. So you're always going to need running backs. Austin Echler said, like, it's tough to win without a good running back. And a lot of people were immediately like, no, no, no. And it's like, wait, wait, yeah, yeah, yeah. Like, it is, right? Like, and you can say, oh, the Chiefs won without, like, they had Isaiah Pocchio as a fifth round rookie.

Yeah, Isaiah Pocchico ran the ball pretty stinking well. I'm not saying that, like, you need a highly drafted or highly compensated running back, but you still need a good running back. You need a guy who trustee of the football. And there's a lot of those guys. And that's part of the issue is that there's such a high supply. And that's why, like, I think there's some credence to the idea of, like, if you're a five-star running back, you should probably stay at running back. But if you're like a three-star running back, I think there's like a warranted conversation for like you should think about playing different positions at the high school and at the college level.

That put aside for right now, I think, right, the non-salary cap solution is an important one, right? Like the salary cap creates a closed market where NFL teams are going to pinch pennies where they can. And the easiest place to finish pennies right now is running back. It's totally understandable from a competitive perspective. So if you introduce something that's outside of the cap to a degree, which like Dominique Fox with Vespran brought up the performance-based pay pool, which is a pool of money where if you are like a super undercompensated player, right, you're on like a veteran minimum deal. but then you end up starting 16, 17 games and getting a bunch of tackles, getting a bunch of carries,

getting a bunch of catches, whatever, you are going to get additional money at the end of the season to more accurately compensate you for how you were used. Like, that is outside of the salary cap and intuitive for the running back position. A lot of the solutions that are intuitive to the running back position, like carving out a part of the performance-based pay pool for running backs, like moving the running backs up earlier in the draft, where like they only have to spend two years in college or instead of having four year deals or the fifth year option they have only three year deals

with a fourth year option right people like there's always these responses that's like well the the players union's never going to go for this because you can't just go out and protect one position over the other positions and I get that I do but I think if you take the word running back away from it and go players union we have a position where the value of their franchise tag

has gone down in the last five seasons, do you want to protect that group? The players, you know, would be like, yes, right? Like, you don't have to make it like, and now the special chapter of the CBA that's titled, Helping Running Backs, just make it a special chapter in the CBA entitled, helping any position whose value has gone down

over the last five years while the cap has gone up. And that obviously is running back, but this doesn't have to be exclusive to running back. If you and I are sitting in rocking chairs looking at each other in an AI recording room as we do a podcast 40 years from now and the tight end franchise tag has gone down in 40 years, let it activate and help out the tight end position. Let's get the tight ends earlier into the draft. Let's get the tight ends a part of the player, the performance base of paypool, right? Like this idea that like, oh, the players union and the CBA is never going to carve out an exemption for running backs. To me, it's kind of silly. Don't carve out an exemption for running backs. Carve out an exemption for all positions that are currently in the thing that the running back position is enduring. Yeah. I mean, I just think like giving up on the issue and just be like, ah, it's not possible.

It's just not the way to do it. This is obviously an issue that needs to be addressed. It just needs to be addressed. I don't think we could just sit here and use these arguments about on-field production and what value that provide. It's a human rights issue at this point. Not a human rights. Maybe that's a little too bold, but like a labor rights issue at this point.

And there's a solution out there. It might not be like something that, with, like, how we think of the NFL structure and how teams are built and the salary cap system. But if that's the case, then let's just change the system. Like, who cares about the salary? Like, I don't know. There's a way to figure this out and get these guys more fairly compensated. And, like, you can make the argument that they don't do enough on the field or whatever to

they're getting what they deserve. But, like, how about we apply this to everyone's job? Would you like that? Like, I don't want the ringer to, like, do a deep dive EPA study on. on the value I provide Spotify. Yeah, exactly. And that's, that's what running backs are fundamentally voicing. They're saying, I work very hard and I incur great personal risk.

You and I incur great personal risk in terms of like hours slept in the fall months. Okay, it's very dangerous. They incur great personal risk in terms of like concussions, probably more dangerous. But we say, I work very hard. I incur great personal risk. And I'd like to be adequately compensated. And with what I know of my world, with what I know about like what my coworkers make and what I know about the money that's available to being paid me, it's very clear to me that there should be enough money to adequately compensate me. And they're absolutely right. And this is where like rooting for a team becomes tricky. Because when you root for the cults, you want the Colts to win as many games as possible. And because you want the Colts to win as many games as possible, you want them to make positive expected value decisions. You want them to make. good team building decisions. And a good team building decision right now is to skimp at the running

back position. But fundamentally, that makes you root against Jonathan Taylor. And that's a weird place to be as a fan because of course you want to root for Jonathan Taylor. He's a very good player on your team. And so that's why like the framework of these conversations becomes really important. It can't just be like running backs don't matter, which is a really bad tagline that I don't like. Running backs don't matter. So don't pay running backs. It's like no. Like, this is one of the 11 players on the field. And the more talented he is, the better he's going to impact plays when he has the ball,

the more directly he's going to impact defensive game plans throughout the week. We're bad at quantifying that. And as we've gotten better at quantifying all things, we've realized how important, like, guards are in other players, and that's good. But we're bad at quantifying that. And if we just sit here and say, oh, we're bad at quantifying this and wide receivers are more important. So screw these guys.

We're not being good, like, football fans. we're not being good fans of like good players nor are we supporting the people who entertain us that blows and so as fans involved in this discourse and as like people who consume the game we should acknowledge that like running backs need to be paid better

there's competitive discussions that are independent of that statement and they have credence too but running backs need to be paid better and when like Josh Jacobs and Sequel and Barkley and Austin Eckler ask for more money we should probably support those people yeah I think that's a key point

And I mean, I'm guilty of this. I know you probably have some articles or tweets out there where you're like, oh, these guys paid a running back. They're idiots. And like I hate Cole Commet hard in this podcast where like I don't need to be pocket checking coal. You know what I'm saying? Right.

Yeah. But yeah, I don't think it just makes you a bad fan. Like it kind of makes you not a, I don't want to say bad person, but it makes me question your humanity when you treat these guys like cogs in a machine, even if that's how the NFL teams view them. And that's the problem right there is if we can get to a point where we're not viewing, where NFL teams aren't viewing these guys as cogs in a machine that only produces a football wins, I think we'll find a solution to this problem because it is a problem.

And I think the first step is just acknowledging it's a problem. I think there is some blowback or some pushback against that that it's not an issue. But like when these running backs are meeting on Zoom, it's hard to get three people on a Zoom at once. My favorite take is the like, this is the free market. And it's like, yeah, the free market is famously doing a great job right now. Like, yeah, let's just free market this sucker. The free market dictated by like, that's governed by like a salary cap and a franchise tag and a draft. And yeah, yeah.

Before Stephen and I spiral into too much economic despair, we're going to get out of here. This, as I said at the top of the show, was our first or this was our last, as I said at the top of the show, podcast. in our big off-season questions series, which we are really, really appreciative and thankful to Arjuna, Ram Gapol and Connor Nevins, who, as I always say, provide additional production supervision for this show, but also listeners should know,

we're the ones who were approved for the show. We're the ones who were pitched to the show and said, yeah, you guys can do that. That sounds fun. And then they gave us good feedback, and so we do thank them for their support. We also think Eduardo Ocampo, who's a producer for all of these shows

who was asked, hey, do you want to produce, like, a Friday football podcast in the summer where, like, the conversation isn't even interesting things that's two of the biggest football nerds in the world just like talking back and forth one another about a bunch of like really esoteric stuff and he was like heck yeah man if you haven't listened to our Herbert reaction pod here on the feed you should because we got Eduardo on the mic he's a big Chargers fan so thank you to Eduardo we appreciate a lot dude but most emphatically thanks to everybody who listened thanks to everybody who enjoyed and

thanks to everybody who said something it was really cool to hear that people like this It makes, is validating. It's encouraging. It makes me feel good. I know it makes Stephen feel good. There were a lot of people who reached out with wonderful words. Some of them in European languages when we did the whole soccer comparison and they were all Steven's pals and I didn't really know how to respond to that.

But I appreciated that too. For the reviews that were left and emails and everybody on Twitter, thank you guys. We really enjoyed doing this. We're glad that some of you enjoyed listening to it as well. Stephen and I will be on the feed. We'll be around, of course, for the entire NFL season. We'll still be asking big questions on all of our respective shows. more on NFL scheduling here on the feed to come as we step into training camp and into the season.

But until then, thank you so much for listening. We'll catch around the bend.