Good as NFL's star running backs are, they haven't been worth the money lately

The New York Giants notched their first win of the 2023 season Tuesday, enticing previously unsigned Pro Bowl running back Saquon Barkley to training camp by – per multiple reports – (slightly) sweetening his one-year franchise tag with not even $1 million in incentives while converting a portion of the original $10.1 million, fully guaranteed payout into a $2 million signing bonus. It hardly amounted to long-term security – Barkley isn’t eligible for an extension until next year – for one of the best NFL players at his position.

And that’s the rub.

Relative to the billions the league generates annually, RBs find themselves in something of a financial crisis at a time when NFL economics have created a market in which ball carriers are readily available on the discount rack, and there’s little reason to pay retail no matter how capable the player. If Barkley hits all his incentives and takes home $11 million this season, he’d only rank sixth at his position (based on average salary) – and that would be partially due to the recent pay cut that knocked the Cincinnati Bengals’ Joe Mixon down the scale.

Barkley apparently didn’t even get a concession that would prevent the Giants from tagging him again in 2024, meaning he could be right back in this position – though with a 20% raise – a year from now.

Why?

From the individual perspectives of these often sublimely talented yardage, touchdown and highlight machines, it’s a shame they’ve fallen behind on the wage scale as teams remain perpetually focused on their salary cap’s bottom line – albeit while paying quarterbacks, wide receivers, offensive tackles (including the Giants' Andrew Thomas on Wednesday morning), elite guards, pass rushers and cornerbacks at ever-increasing premiums. (Hello, Justin Herbert.) Yet can you really blame the general managers trained on their professional bottom lines – which is calculated by wins and titles?

Consider:

Current RBs aren’t helped by recent contracts

Even at a time when the cap continues to balloon, running backs have seen the top of their earning power diminish. It’s been four years since Ezekiel Elliott set the market with a six-year, $90 million extension that included $50 million guaranteed. It superseded then-Rams star Todd Gurley’s four-year, $57.5 million deal, struck in 2018. Gurley was released not two full years later, while Elliott lasted four seasons into his extension before the Dallas Cowboys cut the cord this spring. Gurley was an All-Pro in 2018, but knee issues had already relegated him to a marginal role by that season’s playoffs, which ended with Los Angeles losing Super Bowl 53. The Cowboys won one playoff game after Elliott signed his megadeal – he’d won two rushing titles beforehand – and his production went into steep decline.

And those aren’t the worst of what evidently became cautionary contractual tales.

▶ Christian McCaffrey and the New Orleans Saints’ Alvin Kamara both signed extensions in 2020 that made them the only backs in the league to average at least $15 million annually. Since then, the Carolina Panthers – they didn’t reach the playoffs after CMC got his massive deal – traded their centerpiece, McCaffrey appearing in 10 total games over the 2020 and ’21 seasons. The Saints have one playoff win in the three years since paying Kamara.

▶ After refusing to play on the franchise tag a second straight seasons for the Pittsburgh Steelers in 2018, Le’Veon Bell signed a four-year, $52.5 million deal with the New York Jets in 2019 – and was so abysmal that the NYJ released him early in the 2020 campaign.

▶ The Arizona Cardinals signed David Johnson to a three-year, $39 million extension in 2018. He hasn’t rushed for 1,000 yards since and was a former Card by 2020.

RBs are easily to replace

If you spend a first-round pick on one, as the Giants did with Barkley, you effectively control his rights for up to seven years by exercising the fifth-year option on the rookie deal and then using the franchise tag twice. Backs not taken in Round 1 can easily be tied to their original team for six seasons. And given the pounding players at the position endure while taking handoffs and catching passes – plus the more invisible toll exacted in pass protection – clubs are quite comfortable letting a veteran go rather than awarding a second contract.

Just last season, the Kansas City Chiefs drafted Isiah Pacheco, who led the eventual champs with a moderate 830 rushing yards after he replaced former first-rounder Clyde Edwards-Helaire as the starter midway through the year.

"A guy like Pacheco, seventh-round pick, balled out in the Super Bowl," former Giants vice president of player personnel Marc Ross told USA TODAY Sports. "You don’t have to pay him anything, and then you move on to the next guy. There’s just no leverage here."

Ross also notes team can defray their expenses and limit their financial exposure by signing several lower-cost backs rather than pay one superstar. He was in the Giants front office when they won a pair of Super Bowls following the retirement of Pro Bowler Tiki Barber, New York thriving with a combination of players like Brandon Jacobs, Ahmad Bradshaw and Derrick Ward.

Many teams have since followed that example. Ross highlights the reigning NFC champion Philadelphia Eagles, who let Miles Sanders go in free agency and pivoted to lower-cost options in D’Andre Swift and Rashaad Penny – even though Sanders signed a moderate four-year deal with the Panthers that averaged a little more than $6 million.

The last 10 league MVPs have been QBs

And maybe that shouldn’t be surprising as MVP is often considered a quarterback award. But if you reach back to 2000, four running backs – Marshall Faulk (2000), Shaun Alexander (2005), LaDainian Tomlinson (2006) and Adrian Peterson (2012) – have been named Most Valuable Player. And while all four of their teams reached the playoffs in those respective years, only Alexander’s Seattle Seahawks won any postseason games … and many observers will point to his offensive line, with Hall of Famers Walter Jones and Steve Hutchinson, as the primary reason. The only backs to win MVP and the Super Bowl in the same season are Emmitt Smith (1993) and Terrell Davis (1998). Over the past decade alone, five of those MVP quarterbacks reached the Super Bowl, though only Patrick Mahomes also won it (last season).

It’s been a quarter-century since an RB was Super Bowl MVP

Kinda hard to believe, right? But only five running backs in the past 40 years have been deemed the best player on Super Sunday, most recently Davis in Super Bowl 32 following the 1997 season. By comparison, five receivers have been Super Bowl MVP in the past 18 years, including the New England Patriots’ Julian Edelman in Super Bowl 53 and the Rams’ Cooper Kupp in Super Bowl 56. Otherwise, aside from Seahawks LB Malcolm Smith and Denver Broncos OLB Von Miller, it’s been all quarterbacks over that stretch.

"Teams figured out you can win big without them, and great backs don’t necessarily help you win," says Ross, adding it’s also much easier for a defense to eliminate a running back from the offense's game plan than the quarterback, who has any number of options on a given snap – particularly if he's an effective runner himself.

"This might just be the tipping point."

How else to rain on RB parade?

▶ Of the past six Super Bowl champions, none had a 1,000-yard runner. In fact, those teams’ leading rushers have averaged 808 yards.

▶ Of the past 15 champions, three had a 1,000-yard rusher, only one of them – Seattle's Marshawn Lynch in 2013 – with as many as 1,200.

▶ Of the past 15 league rushing champions, three played for teams that won even a single playoff game. None reached the Super Bowl, and only the Tennessee Titans’ Derrick Henry, in 2019, made it as far as the championship round. The Raiders’ Josh Jacobs ran for an NFL-best 1,653 yards in 2022 (Las Vegas missed the playoffs) and, like Barkley, was franchised … and a year after the Silver and Black declined the fifth-year option of Jacobs’ rookie contract. He has yet to sign the tag and did not report to camp.

Despite Barkley's estimable ability – arguably the best combination of speed, power and elusiveness since Hall of Famer Barry Sanders – 2022 was the first time his Giants reached the postseason. It was also only his second pro season that wasn’t significantly impacted by injuries.

It’s a pretty dire picture. Why would teams back up Brink’s trucks for backs given the likelihood of reduced production, crippling injuries endemic to the position and nary a Lombardi whiff? If running backs want the bag, they’ve got to re-establish their linkage to winning actual championships and not the fantasy variety – and probably featuring a skill set that allows for 200 carries and 70 receptions while being available to play most weeks.

"You definitely have to be versatile like that, no question. The days of just pounding it – you might never see a back like that again,” says Ross.

“And those limited skill-set guys? No market for those guys."

Follow USA TODAY Sports' Nate Davis on Twitter @ByNateDavis.