Return of the Back: The Meteoric Rebirth of the Running Back Position
It seems that the reports of the death of the running back position have been greatly exaggerated. Not even two years ago, a number of star NFL running backs organized a Zoom call amongst themselves to discuss the devaluing of the running back position league-wide. Such notable attendees of the call included Saquon Barkley, Christian McCaffrey, and Derrick Henry. Despite their star power, running backs just weren’t being paid like other offensive playmakers, and despite the historical importance of the position, it seemed like modern-day offenses placed a secondary priority on elite running back play.
It must have been hard for the players to face the data in front of them. Average rushing attempts league-wide have been steadily declining over the decades, with three of the bottom five years ever of per-game average rush attempts coming in 2018, 2019, and 2021. In terms of building a roster, to this day, the last RB drafted in the top five picks was Saquon Barkley back in 2018. The era of the bell cow running back, of the days where a team went all in on getting a Bo Jackson or Barry Sanders, is well and truly dead.
Well, they were dead. What a difference a season or two makes. Rushing averages per game this past season were the second highest they’ve been in a decade, while average rushing yards per game were the second highest they’ve been this century. The running back is back and with a vengeance, in terms of both on-field production and sweet dollar, dollar bills. For proof, all you have to do is look at the last two seasons of the three aforementioned stars in that fateful Zoom call back in the summer of 2023.
Starting with Christian McCaffrey, his first full season with the San Francisco 49ers in 2023 rapidly became a rushing campaign of epic proportions. CMC both led the league and set a career best in rushing yards, blazing forward in a phenomenal season that led to an NFC Championship win for his team and an Offensive Player of the Year award for himself. Tellingly in the context of the running back resurrection, McCaffrey also finished third in MVP votes, the highest a running back has placed in the award voting since Todd Gurley’s second-place finish in 2017. As a reward for this herculean season, the Niners extended CMC to the tune of $19 million a year. Please bear in mind that a talking point in the RB Zoom call was the increasing difficulty of teams willing to sign a long-term deal with a running back over $10 million a year.
It would be impossible to talk about this past season without mentioning the name Saquon Barkley. Entering his first season away from the New York Giants and on the Philadelphia Eagles’ roster, an “ideal” finish to Barkley’s 2024 season would have seen him simply play the full schedule, complement the passing attack, and accumulate a solid 1000 yards rushing. That did not happen. Instead, Barkley won a Super Bowl, amassed 2005 rushing yards over the regular season, broke the NFL record for most rushing yards in a single combined season and postseason, and just like Christian McCaffrey the year before, won Offensive Player of the Year and finished third in MVP voting. While Barkley has always been respected as a running back in the NFL, this season put him as the undisputed face of the modern-day running back position and solidified just how much RBs could feast in the present-day league. It showed fiscally too, as the Eagles immediately extended Barkley, netting him over $20 million a year through 2028.
Last but certainly not least, Derrick Henry’s first year with the Baltimore Ravens this season saw a return to form and glory that was only overshadowed by Saquon Barkley’s excellence the same year. Henry finished second in rushing yardage and tied for first in rushing touchdowns across the NFL this season, also posting the second-highest numbers in either category across his entire NFL career. Henry also finished fourth in Offensive Player of the Year voting and earned a Second Team All-Pro selection. Not bad for a running back on a new team and on the “wrong side” of 30 years old. While CMC and Barkley were immediately rewarded handsomely in the form of contract extensions and big, fat raises, Henry is entering the last year of his contract with no such extension done as of the time of this writing. The Ravens have publicly stated their interest in extending Henry and with the combination of his impressive 2024 season with the market-resetting deals of McCaffrey and Barkley, it is hard to imagine that Henry won’t be paid a substantial chunk of change, either in Baltimore or somewhere else.
