(05-23-2024, 08:27 AM)Mikey Wrote:

(05-22-2024, 07:28 PM)mikesez Wrote: Of course it matters.  That's a given.  What I'm trying to discuss with you is, should it matter as much as it does, and can there be a future system where it matters less than it does now?

Yes, if you stretch out the timescale of your analysis to the scale of an entire football career from pee-wee on, and if you imagine that the parents of a talented child have perfect control of that child and perfect rational understanding of that child's prospects, interests, and likely adult height and build, and if you assume that those perfectly rational and perfectly informed parents are strong willed and able to overrule the coach who will always want that man among boys to play RB, you will see something like a free market action where the supply of running backs reacts to the demand for running backs.

Other than that it ain't happening.  The market ain't free jack.  It's managed end to end.  Let's be rational and shift the conversation to how to manage it better.

The RB who is not quite good enough to make an NFL team, he's taking a beating in college, then not taking a beating in the NFL, and not getting NFL money, and nothing has changed for him. 

The RB who is good enough to make an NFL team, he takes a beating in college, takes a beating in the NFL, then is out, but unless he gets a second contract, his pay will never be based on his actual NFL performance, only based on what a GM thought his performance might be in the year he was drafted.  That's not rational, it hurts the product on the field, and it's unfair to the guys actually taking the beating on the field.

Thing is, we still see RBs getting taken early and getting those big-dollar deals. While not many, the ones that do prove in college that they can produce, carry a workload, and do so usually against top competition.

JRob was a unicorn, in a sense. He produced against second-tier (relatively) competition in CFB, and was able to produce for an season here. Most of the guys taken in the sixth rounds each year aren't a team's bellcow back nor are they racking up consecutive 1000-yard seasons to demand the fat paychecks.

You want to see RB value go up? It's gonna require rule changes to make run game easier while also stifling passing games. For now, the rules heavily favor QBs and the air. If the game was more heavy skewed toward running the ball, teams would draft more RBs and draft them higher, thereby altering their market. Their pay discrepancy is a symptom of the state of the game, both in rules and replaceability.

Actually, no, there is a sharp downward trend of RBs taken early. See stat at bottom of post. 

Because the position has been devalued.

The game evolves. Positional importance shifts. 

Might be bad luck for running backs' bank accounts, but it's not any more complicated than that.

They don't need saving. It really just is what it is. 

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2024 - zero 1st round RBs
One - 2nd round RB

2023 - zero 1st round RB
One - 2nd round RB

2022 -zero 1st round RB
three - 2nd round RB (of the 6 six seasons played by those three backs - two 1000 yard seasons have been recorded)

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