There once was a time that the running back position dominated the NFL landscape. It seems as though that those times are coming to an end. It’s no surprise that the NFL has become a passing league, all you have to do is look at the numbers. In the past 10 seasons, the NFL leader in rushing yards has not been in a single Super Bowl. In fact, LaDainian Tomlinson is the only player out of the group to be featured in his conference’s championship game. It is evident that the running back position is losing it’s value, and here are some of the reasons.
Playbook development
Most current NFL offensive playbooks run are shotgun-happy. We are seeing more snaps taken from the shotgun formation than any time before. These present great advantages for quarterbacks, but not so much for running backs. The playbook now uses the running back in as a vital key in the passing game, and it continues to look that way towards the future.
The birth of the receiving running back
It is becoming more and more of a necessity to catch the ball as an NFL running back. There were four NFL running backs that were in the top sixty in receiving yards last season. The most in NFL history. Two of those guys, Christian McCaffrey and Alvin Kamara, were rookies. Another guy, Gurley, had the second-most receiving yard on his team. The last of the bunch is Bell. Gurley is also the only running back averaging twenty carries per game in 2018. If that trend continues, it will be the first time in NFL history that only one player in the league will accomplish that feat in a season.
The Le’Veon Bell situation
If you have been following the NFL this season, you should know about the issue with Le’Veon Bell and the Pittsburgh Steelers. Bell was set to become a free agent after the 2017 NFL season. That was, until the Steelers put Bell on a franchise tag. This means that Bell would be a Steeler again for the 2018 season, and the Steelers would have to pay Bell 120 percent of his 2017 salary, or the average salary of the top 5 highest-paid players for his position in the NFL. The team pays whichever is the greater amount. Bell refused to sign the 14.5 million dollar contract for the franchise tag. He has been holding out, not reporting to Steelers facilities at all in the offseason or regular season. Bell has been replaced by James Connor, and Connor is putting up better numbers than Bell did last year.
True running back worth
Every time a big name running back becomes a free agent, he asks for what others see as an outrageous amount of money. We are seeing now more than ever that you don’t need an All Pro running back to get to the Super Bowl. The last one to do it was Shaun Alexander in 2006. We have seen the likes of Brandon Jacobs, Pierre Thomas, Shane Vareen, CJ Anderson, Willie Parker, and James Starks all be on Super Bowl winning teams. Anderson remains to be the only one from the list currently in the NFL.
Depth at the running back position
NFL teams are using more running backs than ever in games. This is because of the extraordinary depth of the position. The Philadelphia Eagles used four running backs in the Super Bowl last year. And all of them looked terrific. Teams stray away from big name backs because if that guy wants fifteen million dollars a year, you could find two solid backs that will take seven or eight million dollars each. You get two guys, you have a good backup, and you can switch them out so that they don’t get too tired. The skill level between an All Pro back and a starter are closer than ever. Sony Michel has similar skills to Bell, though not as good, he is much cheaper.
Injuries
Injuries in the NFL happen more now than ever before. Players are encouraged not to play if they are not 100 percent ready to play. Running backs get injured easily, and it makes them hard to get big contracts. Six of the top twelve highest paid backs in the league have been injured since the start of the 2017 NFL season. Most of them missing significant time. David Johnson, perhaps the biggest name out of them, missed almost the entire season last year. Jerick McKinnon just signed a huge contract this past offseason with the San Francisco 49ers, and suffered an ACL tear the day before the regular season began.
What the future holds for All Pro running backs
As we look towards the future, it seems as if the traditional running back is becoming a myth. Teams won’t let their guys carry the ball twenty to twenty five times a game. They are relying on good quarterback play to get to the Super Bowl. It looks as if that should be the
route to go. Every quarterback other than Joe Flacco that has represented the AFC in the Super Bowl for the past fourteen years, will be inducted in the NFL Hall of Fame. I want nothing more that to see the traditional running back come back from the grave, but it’s a matter of if a head coach will put that much workload on a running back going forward.
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