One thing that might revalue them back upwards (from their current devalued state) is that pretty much every team is using a committee now. How the 49ers manage CmC will be a sign of things to come, have a super talented RB, use them where necessary but sparingly if possible and try and put less miles into their legs to decrease injury risk. This should in turn improve their efficiency numbers like Aaron Jones for example, whilst giving them more longevity.

That said, it does seem the smart play to draft one early then run them into the ground whilst on a rookie deal then bin them off and start again in 4 (or 5) years. I think you can see how that might be deemed unfair, more yards equals lower future value, doesn't really make sense. Long term surely it will just force all good RBs to try to move to WR to get better money and the quality will go down.

From a RB perspective, getting rid of the tag would help, alternatively shortening the length of the RB rookie contract would help them. If you're a rookie RB what's your plan? Convince your team to use you in a committee so as to protect your body? We actually have a pretty good experiment here with Etienne and Bigsby. Tank essentially being a slightly worse version of Etienne, suspect they'll use him as much as they can get away with basically. However, if Bigsby ends up outperforming or even just matching Etienne it doesn't make a great argument for giving Etienne a decent contract in a year or two.

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