ON A SATURDAY in late July 2023, the NFL’s high working backs joined a Zoom name. The decision, organized by Austin Ekeler, included Saquon Barkley, Nick Chubb, Derrick Henry, Josh Jacobs and Christian McCaffrey. In a gallery of their friends, they aired grievances a couple of depressed marketplace for gamers at their place and brainstormed methods to extend their worth and compensation.
Barkley and Jacobs had been franchise-tagged for $10.1 million — lowest amongst all offensive and defensive positions — till their organizations utilized a brief monetary band-aid to keep away from a holdout with short-term offers barely greater than the franchise tag valuation. Nonetheless, the prospect of fixing league attitudes about compensating veteran working backs — a place at which many groups view gamers as interchangeable due to their success in utilizing late-round draft picks or free brokers making veteran minimums — felt bleak.
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By the following offseason, although, with the New York Giants unwilling to interrupt organizational precedent and signal their working again to a blockbuster extension, Barkley hit free company and garnered main curiosity. He finally signed a three-year, $37.75 million contract that included $26 million assured with the Philadelphia Eagles.
Eleven months after inking the deal, Barkley hoisted the Lombardi Trophy at Caesars Superdome in New Orleans. The Tremendous Bowl victory capped a season wherein, together with the playoffs, he broke the single-season dashing document and earned Offensive Participant of the 12 months. On Tuesday, the Eagles rewarded him with a blockbuster two-year, $41.2 million contract that made him the highest-paid working again in league historical past.
However even with Barkley’s accomplishments in his first yr as an Eagle and subsequent payday, a free company working again renaissance is not essentially imminent.
Conversations with practically a dozen league officers revealed that whereas the free agent working again market seems stronger than the one which prompted the July 2023 name, the 2025 free brokers aren’t projected to proceed the trajectory of the record-setting 2024 class. As an alternative, final yr’s monetary and on-field success had been the product of a “confluence of occasions,” in response to one league supply.
Whereas league executives do not count on Barkley & Co.’s success to considerably affect contracts of 2025 free agent working backs, offensive and defensive developments may improve demand on the place. However, NFL decision-makers cautioned, the market may be much less sturdy due to a deep working again draft class.
“On the finish of the day, your staff has to suit no matter participant it’s, working again, receiver, no matter, inside your construction and the confines,” Buffalo Payments normal supervisor Brandon Beane mentioned. “And also you do have to concentrate to the present market.”
BARKLEY BECOMING THE highest-paid working again — and first to be paid no less than $20 million per yr — underscored a consensus opinion amongst league executives, coaches and brokers: He’s an distinctive expertise, and distinctive abilities create exceptions to the rule.
Whereas Barkley’s affect may not enhance the worth of the place as an entire, league sources mentioned his success may result in better compensation for top-tier free agent working backs and in-house extension candidates.
“It may give pause to of us who possibly have not invested in working backs to rethink that,” one AFC expertise evaluator instructed ESPN. “However I am unsure it is going to transfer the needle a lot that you just see an actual sea change throughout your entire place.”
One other league supply acquainted with participant negotiations mentioned he does not foresee an enormous bounce out there.
“Good gamers are going to receives a commission properly,” he mentioned. “However I do not suppose the development is unexpectedly to pay working backs due to Saquon.”
In a category anchored by Barkley, Henry and Jacobs, the highest seven 2024 free agent working backs averaged $12 million in assured cash, up from $7.1 million in 2023, $4.8 million in 2022 and $4.5 million in 2021.
The highest 2025 free agent working backs embody Aaron Jones, Najee Harris and J.Ok. Dobbins, who fall in need of an unprecedented 2024 group that boasted 4 mixed All-Professional nods and three dashing titles.
As Barkley rushed and hurdled his manner into MVP competition, the remainder of the category additionally outperformed current free agent courses. In his first yr with the Ravens, Henry ran for 1,921 yards and 16 touchdowns, averaging 5.9 yards per carry, whereas Jacobs racked up 1,329 yards and 15 touchdowns on 4.4 yards per carry, per ESPN Analysis.
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Stacked with important star energy, the highest seven free agent working backs of the 2024 class far outpaced the highest seven of the earlier three courses, combining for 8,868 dashing yards, 64 dashing touchdowns and 4.8 yards per carry. 5 of the seven, which additionally included D’Andre Swift, Tony Pollard, Devin Singletary and Jones, completed among the many high 12 in rush yards.
By comparability, the highest seven working backs within the 2023 free agent class mixed for 3,093 rush yards. Solely David Montgomery (ninth) completed among the many league’s high 30 rushers. The highest seven within the 2022 class rushed for two,433 yards. Cordarrelle Patterson (thirty ninth) ranked the very best amongst these seven in dashing yards. And in 2021, the identical pattern measurement mixed for two,475 dashing yards.
The 2024 class is undoubtedly an outlier, however some within the NFL imagine their success as a bunch helps strengthen a market that lagged behind different ability positions simply a few years in the past as provide outpaced demand.
“I used to be simply speaking to an agent who had a pair working backs developing, and I mentioned in case you’d requested me a number of years in the past, I would not have been as optimistic,” Chiefs normal supervisor Brett Veach mentioned. “However with the years a number of the guys that signed final yr had … [and] particularly when you will have these distinctive guys which have a full ability set the place they will run, catch and block, I believe you will begin to see these guys coming again as much as the place they need to be out there.”
WHILE BARKLEY AND the 2024 free agent working backs may not considerably issue into the general positional worth for the 2025 class, leaguewide schematic developments may increase working again compensation.
Although groups will at all times covet cannon-armed quarterbacks and game-breaking extensive receivers, some organizations are shifting their focus to constructing stronger floor video games. Workforce dashing averages have steadily elevated prior to now 10 years, together with a 7 yards per recreation bounce from 112.7 in 2023 to 119.8 in 2024.
“The whole lot form of comes full circle,” Veach mentioned. “It goes in flows the place it is a run league, then it is a move league, then it will get somewhat bit extra balanced.”
And in recent times, there’s been a correlation between sturdy run video games and profitable seasons. Groups that completed with the most effective information in 2023 and 2024 had a median league dashing yards per recreation rating of ninth, and 6 of these groups completed within the high 10. From 2021 and 2022, nevertheless, the most effective groups had a median league rating of fifteenth, and 5 groups completed within the high 10, per ESPN Analysis.
“These defenses as we speak should not geared in the direction of stopping the run the way in which they had been a number of years in the past,” the AFC expertise evaluator mentioned. “So there’s worth there to working backs.”
Probably the most beneficial of these working backs, different league executives mentioned, are versatile abilities corresponding to Barkley, McCaffrey and Bijan Robinson. As offenses shift to capitalize on the systematic weak spot of defenses designed to cease passing assaults, the notion of working backs is shifting, too.
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“Individuals weren’t [running backs] as weapons,” Beane mentioned. “I form of search for ’em as anybody you add to your offense, what do they bring about? What’s their ability set? Is it a mismatched participant? Saquon, McCaffrey, any of these guys, they will line up and play extensive receiver. They will line up within the backfield.”
Receiving yards by working backs, although, have decreased all through the previous decade.
They accounted for 14.05% of all receiving yards in 2024, marking the bottom share in additional than 20 years. That share has steadily decreased for the reason that statistic was first recorded at 19.8% in 2000.
However groups nonetheless put a premium on working backs able to contributing in a number of areas, whether or not as a move catcher or in move safety, along with their major run recreation duties. And that versatility is a major think about positional valuation.
“The working again place has modified as a lot or greater than the market,” Beane mentioned. “Now not is it 3 yards and a cloud of mud. [Some of] these guys are weapons on all three downs.”
WHILE THE DEMAND for versatile working backs is undoubtedly growing, so, too, is the provision. As an alternative of a flush free agent market, the majority of the rise this season figures to come back from a loaded working again draft class. The inflow may properly lower the demand for veteran free agent working backs, particularly ones who’ve important mileage.
“It is a strong group in free company, but it surely’s a uncommon yr with working backs within the draft,” Seahawks normal supervisor John Schneider mentioned. “I can not bear in mind this variety of legit prospects on the working again place within the draft, and I often do not speak about depth within the draft, but it surely’s protruding this yr.”
ESPN draft analyst Jordan Reid projected 5 working backs to go within the first two rounds in his post-combine mock draft, headlined by Boise State standout Ashton Jeanty at No. 6.
“It is not an excessively nice free agent class, and it is a deep working again [draft] class,” Reid mentioned. “I believe that is going to have a adverse impact on the free agent class.”
Reid has 32 draftable grades at working again this yr. The final time no less than 30 working backs had been chosen in the identical draft was 2017. Earlier than that, it had final occurred in 1998.
“It is similar to what we noticed in 2017,” Reid mentioned, evaluating the 2025 class to a bunch that included Leonard Fournette, McCaffrey and Joe Mixon. “… I believe we may recover from 30 drafted this yr. That simply goes to point out you ways deep this working again class is. It is not as star-studded on the high as that 2017 group, however 4 to 5 years from now, I positively suppose it could possibly be talked about in the identical breath.”
One staff’s preliminary place group analysis, a league supply acquainted with their scouting course of mentioned, additionally recognized practically 30 working backs who could possibly be drafted.
Twenty working backs had been drafted in 2024, 18 in 2023 and 23 in 2022. Though two working backs went within the first spherical of the 2023 draft, none got here off the board till the second spherical in 2024 and 2022.
An evaluation by ESPN Analysis revealed the highest seven rookie working backs of the previous 4 courses have been largely extra impactful than the highest seven free brokers — with the exception being the 2024 free agent class, which outgained the rookies by greater than 5,000 yards. In 2023, the highest seven rookie working backs outgained the veteran free brokers by 1,349 yards, scored 12 extra dashing touchdowns and averaged 1.5 extra yards per carry.
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One other issue working towards free agent working backs is the success of rookies chosen late within the draft. Isiah Pacheco, a 2022 seventh-round decide, anchored the Chiefs’ backfield in two Tremendous Bowl-winning seasons, however when Pacheco missed important time with an harm, the Chiefs turned to a pair of free brokers in Kareem Hunt and Samaje Perine to assist get them to a 3rd straight Tremendous Bowl.
Nonetheless, the excessive hit price on cheaper, late-rounds working backs elements into the weak free agent market.
“Corners, tackles, defensive linemen — when their tape’s good, they go excessive, and when their tape’s common, they’re nonetheless going to go within the center rounds,” Veach mentioned, citing the final scouting and team-building philosophy of many within the league. “Whereas the working backs, you may have a working again that rushes 4,000 yards for 3 years and nonetheless go into the sixth, seventh spherical.”
However simply because this yr’s free agent working again market is not more likely to attain the heights of the 2024 group doesn’t suggest it is a development. Many within the league agreed, the market worth of any given free agent working again is as individualized as that participant’s ability set.
“It is about the person who is up within the dialogue,” Vikings normal supervisor Kwesi Adofo-Mensah mentioned, including {that a} surplus of working backs created a short-term market inefficiency the place the place’s compensation was lower than its on-field worth.
“Long run, they’re going to usually get to their proper water [level], however that is a place that, clearly, you probably have the entrance to have the ability to block for them, they will change video games.”
Although Barkley’s success may not flip into an instantaneous boon for the batch of free brokers set to hit the market in lower than every week, attitudes are slowly beginning to shift round what was as soon as thought-about some of the disposable positions. And for many who met on that frustration-filled Zoom name practically two years in the past, that is progress.
