(05-23-2024, 10:03 AM)mikesez Wrote:

(05-23-2024, 09:31 AM)NYC4jags Wrote: 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)

For about a decade, fewer and fewer teams had a bell cow RB and fewer and fewer RBs were reaching 1000 yards.  

That trend is reversing.  In 2021 only seven players got to 1000 yards rushing.  But in 2022 sixteen players got there.  It is now becoming more important to have one of the top running backs, after years of it being less important.  And the top guys are almost all former first round picks.  This trend you see in the draft is a fluke, I predict.

OK - I don't necessarily agree with any of that in the way that you've stated/framed it - but - 

What does that have to do with their pay scale or the surplus of players at the position? 

If teams like the business model of running the wheels off of a back (MANY of whom are picked in the 3rd-6th rounds) and continuing to draft their replacements instead of signing second contracts, what's the problem? 

It works. There are rare exceptions when a back is worthy of a deal and the team has money to burn,  but I don't see a problem here. 

Drafting and developing at the easiest position to do so seems really smart to me. I whole-heartedly support the methodology. There is no reason to alter the way teams choose to address their backfield rostering decisions.

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