Is RB market making a comeback

Possible but this is still far behind several position like the wide receiver,where the highest paid player make 40-41 millions per year

 

I mean when you are responsible for almost half the yards on your team you are gonna get paid. I don't see Warren or Dowdle racking up those kinds of yards unless the Steeler WR are just complete junk.

 

?!


I thought this was discussed two to three off-seasons ago nationally?! For that matter, I thought the drafting of Bijan Robinson himself signaled the return of the position as a whole?! Regardless, to answer the question, the position is making a comeback but not quite in the way people think.


Bijan is the quintessential three down feature back. No denying that. That said, people need to understand that merely running and catching passes will not equate towards such a contract. The running back position is making a comeback for the position itself is a lot less the classic two point stance player in the backfield and a lot more of the Offensive Personnel Weapon teams want to deploy.



Pittsburgh experimented with such a player a fee years back; Jalen Samuels. Coming out of NC State, Samuels was a lot less Running Back and a lot more OPW. Main issue with him stemmed from both a severe lack of overall athleticism (namely in the lateral mobility domain) along with a severe lack of consistency.

 

If you have an elite back who does damage as a runner and receiver that market for him is high.

 

I'd like to see what these numbers are as cap% in year signed.

My initial guess was that Robinson was at best keeping pace with cap inflation here.

2026 cap: $301.2/team
2025 cap: $279.2/team

%age increase from 2025 to 2026 = 7.9%

Barkley signed his contract in 2025.

$20.6 x 1.079 = $22.22MM

This is basically what Robinson's contract is.

So it looks like the RB market stayed basically the same. Robinson's up ~ $30k vs. expected cap inflation.

And he's (24 years ols) much younger than Barkley (28 when signed) was when he signed. So maybe this is a little lower than the expected value for him based solely on cap inflation?

But this is only looking at the AAVs in the tweet. The structure of the deals are probably important than the AAV, especially for RBs.

 

I think I'd generally rather have 2x guys at $10MM than 1x guy at $20mm. But maybe I'm biased after seeing all the years we had to play below average guys in the playoffs after Bell got hurt.

There are only 13 RBs with an AAV > $10MM currently.

I actually think we're even better than 2x guys at $10mm right now.

Warren and Dowdle are both ~ $6mm. They're both guys who can give you ~1200 yards from scrimmage (hopefully both 1k in the same year!). And if one gets hurt, you still have the other one.

 

The last Bell offer was approx $14MM/season against a $177.2MM cap at signing. That's just shy of 8% of the cap. Gurley's was $14.375MM (roughly 8.1%) against that same cap.

Bijan's is $25MM against a $301.2MM cap or roughly 8.3% of the cap.

Even Tomlinson's first extension back in '04 was $8MM/yr against a roughly $80MM cap.
Peterson's first extension was $14.2 against $120.375MM, just shy of 12%.

Here's a good look at it https://overthecap.com/contract-history/running-back

 

Only reason why you might feel that is the NFL has its worst crop of QBs in decades. Who’s really elite at the QB position right now in the NFL? Mahomes, Stafford, Josh Allen? Is Josh elite? I don’t think so. Hurts isn’t. Jackson isn’t. It’s one guy and he’s playing on a bum knee. And the other is in the twilight of his career.

QB quality has turned into the NBA’s parody sewer. Anyone can win a Super Bowl. Even Sam Darnold.

 

Wow.. that’s Herbig money!!!

 

It think you're right. Maybe Williams played here a year to long IIRC. But it was good.

It would have been better if we didn't screw up the relationship management with Blount. This was kind of Tomlin's "elite trait". And screwing up this relationship (I think mostly because we ran Bell too much and didn't give Blount enough work) meant that we only had old man Williams in that playoff game against the Pats. Instead Blount was on the other sideline. He wasn't a world beater in that game (16/47 1 TD + 1 reception for 8 yards). But I think he was better than Williams. 14/34 1 TD...but did have 7 receptions for 51.

 

This is great data Hackjam!

So I think it shows that the relative devaluation already happened.

And RBs are holding pretty steady?

I think it is interesting that Robinson basically didn't get any premium for being younger than Barkley. I was too lazy to look up the difference in guarantees (if the "real" or fully guaranteed numbers are know yet re: Robinson).

Maybe the "premium" for being younger is in higher fully guaranteed%? Or maybe teams don't trust the longevity of any back regardless of age?

 

Gibbs highest RB in NFL history. 3/67

 

Jonathan Taylor got a new deal today too.

I wonder what the incentives are in these deals. Bijan and Gibbs both have some sort of variable pay in their deals.

 

Le'Veon Bell is on his bathroom floor in the fetal position sobbing uncontrollably.

 

LoL

 

You know my opinion on this topic. There is no reason the top 10 RB’s shouldn’t make decent money even if on a shorter contract.

It shows an increased valuation of the position.

The argument has always been that RB’s aren’t durable enough for more guaranteed money. You know my opinion on this topic. Those who produce should be paid accordingly.

 

The best RBs still make a significant amount of money. It's just that guys who give you similar results to UDFAs don't get paid at the rate that game changing RBs do.

I don't understand why you don't think that ~ 8% of the total cap for elite RBs doesn't count as "decent money". And not just in normal people terms. In NFL terms.

As the cap% of QBs continues to grow because the league makes rules that favor passing, that cap% has to come from somewhere. And my sense is that the cap% for WRs has exploded over the last decade or so. For the top guys. And probably also in terms of cap% to WRs on a team since most teams (not the Steelers before this season) try to have more than one quality WR. And my guess is that most teams run 11 (3 WRs) more than any other formation on offense.

And the thing that gets devalued when you increase the value of passing is running. But again (as hackjam and I pointed out above)...highly impactful RBs still get paid the same ~ 8% of the cap that Bell and Gurley got on their big deals. And it's not just RBs (meaning half-backs). Where would Tim Lester find a job in today's NFL? Probably try for a TE3-type position I guess?

I agree with you that teams should be OK with bigger money deals without much in the way of guaranteed money. My guess is that they probably are. But I think players would generally prefer to take a little less "funny money" in the contract in exchange for a higher fully guaranteed money %. My guess is that this is especially true for RBs.

There is nothing stopping RBs from trying to go with the Kirk Cousins playbook (I think Revis did this too), where they play on a series of short high-value contracts. But it's a risky game to play for them.

Look what happened to Najee. At worst, he was going to be a high-quality backup RB. But after that injury...he's not even on a roster now. Personally, my guess is that this is by choice. I bet he could sign a short term, low-value contract if he wanted. But in his position it makes sense to wait for the first big RB injury (probably will come for some team in camp) and try to swoop in for a short term medium-value contract to be at least a time-share guy with a significant number of carries. If that goes well, maybe someone gives him a longer term deal with guarantees.

 

Which of these contracts are more valuable?

5 yrs $70 mill with $17 Mill fully guaranteed

4 yrs $60 mill with $20 Mill fully guaranteed

3 yrs $67 mill fully $37 guaranteed

3 yrs $75mill 37 fully guaranteed

4 years $53 mill fully guaranteed


These new contracts aren’t back loaded with a ton of money they will never see. This is why everyone is saying the RB value is up after these contracts.

sorry, had to edit to fix numbers.

 

Depends on when they were offered I think.

And what "guaranteed" means. Because when agents leak info (usually the first info out). They pretty much always make it sound like "guaranteed" == "fully guaranteed" when often a lot of it has conditions (e.g., guaranteed for injury).

 

I updated with the fully guaranteed amount they will get when they sign.

I don’t think when its offered matters when comparing these contracts. 3/75 is better than 5/70 anyway you crunch it. A shorter contract makes it easier to get the most money out of it since we all know those early contracts were backloaded.

 

By when it's offered I meant if one was from like a decade ago or something. Then you'd have to account for cap inflation to compare the numbers.

Maybe I should, but I don't know what these contracts are if you're talking about specific values that come from specific contracts.

If they're all indexed for inflation there's a very obviously choice here. So it's not all that interesting to talk about

I agree that if all of these three options were provided to a player at the same time (so they're all in the same year's cap dollars), then it would be absolutely idiotic not to take the one with 3 years. The player wins on everything here. Short term (so they have the highest probability to get another bite at the apple), highest AAV, and highest guarantees. The options you've provided make it so one contract wins on all fronts (again if the values are all from the same year).

I thought what you suggested (that I agreed with) was shorter term contracts with higher AAV, but less guaranteed money (because the contract is short).

I didn't see that as one of the options you have, so I didn't get how your comparisons made sense with the conversation I thought we were having.