I think we need 7 more pages explaining in great detail how a position can be important but also devalued simultaneously.
Maybe someone will begin to understand the difference.


WR second contract salaries have increased by a healthy margin in recent years.
RB second contract salaries have not.  

One of them is "devalued"

Just go look at the history of the franchise tag salary for each position.

The RB tag # has hovered between 9mil and 11 mil for seven years. Stagnation is the trend here.
The WR tag number has risen from 12 mil to 19 mil in that same span. Keeping pace with the market and the teams' cap increases.

One of those is "devalued" -  Unworthy of being paid lucrative second contracts because ample replacements are readily available for less money.  The demand has been affected by a surplus of supply. 
Making the resource "less valuable." 
I'm trying to come up with a three syllable word that means something has become "less valuable." 
Any ideas? 

Also try putting the word less in front?

less precious
less expensive
matter less
commoner
less central
less dominant
less critical
less crucial
less effective
less essential

All of this and yet the a couple teams draft them in the first 12 picks.  We draft one in the 3rd after our first round pick from a couple years ago just had 1500 yrds. Seatlle just drafted one in back to back years in the 2nd.  So much "less" lol. If you are talking abut less valuable than the 80's?  I agree.  But no less than 5 years, 10 years, or 20 years ago.  If one talented enough comes through the draft he will get picked in the top 5 or 10 in the draft.  No different. This same thing was happening to edge rushers a couple years ago lol. Yawn, Clark, and Lawrence getting tagged while a few on here wanted to give Yawn a blank check. The good times lol

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Also try putting the word less in front?

less precious
less expensive
matter less
commoner
less central
less dominant
less critical
less crucial
less effective
less essential

All of this and yet the a couple teams draft them in the first 12 picks.  We draft one in the 3rd after our first round pick from a couple years ago just had 1500 yrds. Seatlle just drafted one in back to back years in the 2nd.  So much "less" lol. If you are talking abut less valuable than the 80's?  I agree.  But no less than 5 years, 10 years, or 20 years ago.  If one talented enough comes through the draft he will get picked in the top 5 or 10 in the draft.  No different.

Why have WR franchise tags gone up by 5 million in 7 years and RB tags have gone up less than 1 mil? 

Productive backs are a dime a dozen right now. 
Teams draft them because they are still important to offensive production. 
Teams no longer sign them regularly to lucrative 2nd contracts because their value has changed due to surplus. 

Blockbuster deals for NFL RBs are going to become very rare for what may be a very long cycle.

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All of this and yet the a couple teams draft them in the first 12 picks.  We draft one in the 3rd after our first round pick from a couple years ago just had 1500 yrds. Seatlle just drafted one in back to back years in the 2nd.  So much "less" lol. If you are talking abut less valuable than the 80's?  I agree.  But no less than 5 years, 10 years, or 20 years ago.  If one talented enough comes through the draft he will get picked in the top 5 or 10 in the draft.  No different.

Why have WR franchise tags gone up by 5 million in 7 years and RB tags have gone up less than 1 mil? 

Productive backs are a dime a dozen right now. 
Teams draft them because they are still important to offensive production. 
Teams no longer sign them regularly to lucrative 2nd contracts because their value has changed due to surplus. 

Blockbuster deals for NFL RBs are going to become very rare for what may be a very long cycle.

Contract cost is not same as value. Cost will depend on supply and demand, value is subjective and separate from the cost.

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Why have WR franchise tags gone up by 5 million in 7 years and RB tags have gone up less than 1 mil? 

Productive backs are a dime a dozen right now. 
Teams draft them because they are still important to offensive production. 
Teams no longer sign them regularly to lucrative 2nd contracts because their value has changed due to surplus. 

Blockbuster deals for NFL RBs are going to become very rare for what may be a very long cycle.

Contract cost is not same as value. Cost will depend on supply and demand, value is subjective and separate from the cost.

Sent from my SM-S901U 

LOL 

Yall are really are hard up to semantics this thing to death, huh? 

NFL orgs no longer VALUE running backs enough to sign them to long term second contracts as was once more common.

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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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About 66% of the yards gained last year were made through the passing game, only about 33% through the run game. It was not to long ago those percentages were reversed and the running backs were the big dogs. So reverse the curse and force the teams to run more instead of passing. Limit the number of passing plays a team can have during a game. There, problem solved, RB position fixed and the running backs can once again be the big dogs.

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A new broom always sweeps clean.

Fullbacks should riot.

If you can find any.

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“An empty vessel makes the loudest sound, so they that have the least wit are the greatest babblers.”. - Plato

So stay healthy, play at a high level and the reward is having no guarantee of future earning, unlike the rest of the players at other positions around the league. Why are teams not willing to commit to a "high-level" player at the position, when they are perfectly willing to do the same at every other position on the field? Heck, even PUNTERS are given multi-year deals, and they are probably as replaceable as any RB.

You're right. I'm getting it. Crystal frickin' clear. Owners do not hold the RB position to any long-term value. churn and burn.

Do you think teams value punters more because the good ones good long term deals?  Or how about its rare one gets injured and they can play at a high level into their lat 30's?  RBs will contiued to get drafted in the high rounds if they are talented enough though because of what they can bring to a team.  If they are asking for to much money just tag them twice and then sign them to short term deals or find another very good one in the draft being their play will usually start to decline around that time or short after.  What owners do you speak of?  GMs dont want to give them long term contracts because it is the position where the player declines the fastest and the position that the player could most likely get injured.  Why not play it smart and tag them when you have that option?  The player is still getting paid he just has to earn it each year.

The point is exactly that - every other position on the team are getting long term deals with bonuses and guarantees, and the RBs are left to either play on a one year deal or make a fraction of everyone around them. Longevity is an issue, but how many teams are bringing in secondary RB to supplement their current RB or extend their career? They aren't. They are getting the young kid, burning through his leg while he's cheap, and repeating that cycle.

It's moneyball. The owners/GMs see that the position is easily replaceable, and as such they aren't investing in it long-term. If punters wanted to make 10M a year, they'd also be kicked to the curb in favor of a younger, cheaper replacement. The RB position is shafted.

Mind you, if I had the talent I would love the opportunity to make high six figures for a few seasons and walk away. It's unfortunate for RBs, but I'm hardly going to start a charity in their honor.

I think we'll see the RB position become more fluid - more guys like Ekeler and McCaffery that are just as dangerous running a route as they are taking a handoff. No more bruisers that seek out contact. If that's your game, you're not going to stick around long, no matter how good you are, unless you are willing to accept the lower pay while also risking injury and lack of permanence.

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You're going to hurt yourself banging into that wall. Might devalue you like the RBs in another season.

BTdub, Sony Michel says hi!

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“An empty vessel makes the loudest sound, so they that have the least wit are the greatest babblers.”. - Plato

LOL.  You’re doing a perfect job of explaining how the position has been devalued.  LOL.

LOL.. It's not devalued It's just playing it smart.  If the position was devalued RBs wouldn't of just got drafted in the top 12 picks and they wouldn't be getting tagged. Henry, Chubb, McCaffrey, Jones etc wouldn't  of gotten those big deals.  We wouldn't of just drafted one in the 3rd after taking one in the 1st 2 years ago and him just going for 1500 yards. The teams still want those backs they just want to cover their own [BLEEP] so if you have the tag option why not use it?  LOL

OK, we'll play your game.

Bijan Robinson, having played not one down in the league, is currently the 14th highest paid RB in the league.
Etienne is 23rd.

Let's say Etienne continues to tear it up, and two years from now he wants top 5, top 10 money.

Why would you bother paying him if you could replace him with 5 year younger legs and end up paying less than if you tagged or extended your own guy? If you're Etienne, what's your prospect? You bounce around on one year deals trying to keep from getting injured, relearning offenses and having no long-term security that this gig will take care of you like your teammates enjoy. Or, you tuck your tail between your legs, and take way less to stick with the team that picked you, still fearing that one day they'll strike gold on some kid in the third or fourth round, and you're still gonna be looking for a new place to play.

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LOL.. It's not devalued It's just playing it smart.  If the position was devalued RBs wouldn't of just got drafted in the top 12 picks and they wouldn't be getting tagged. Henry, Chubb, McCaffrey, Jones etc wouldn't  of gotten those big deals.  We wouldn't of just drafted one in the 3rd after taking one in the 1st 2 years ago and him just going for 1500 yards. The teams still want those backs they just want to cover their own [BLEEP] so if you have the tag option why not use it?  LOL

OK, we'll play your game.

Bijan Robinson, having played not one down in the league, is currently the 14th highest paid RB in the league.
Etienne is 23rd.

Let's say Etienne continues to tear it up, and two years from now he wants top 5, top 10 money.

Why would you bother paying him if you could replace him with 5 year younger legs and end up paying less than if you tagged or extended your own guy? If you're Etienne, what's your prospect? You bounce around on one year deals trying to keep from getting injured, relearning offenses and having no long-term security that this gig will take care of you like your teammates enjoy. Or, you tuck your tail between your legs, and take way less to stick with the team that picked you, still fearing that one day they'll strike gold on some kid in the third or fourth round, and you're still gonna be looking for a new place to play.

They took ETN's replacement in the 3rd this year. They'll probably take him again in the 5th or so next year. Or sign a UDFA like Hasty to pair with Bigsby for two seasons before he gets replaced.

Don't get used to your running back, on Day 1 he's already on the way out.

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“An empty vessel makes the loudest sound, so they that have the least wit are the greatest babblers.”. - Plato

You get paid for what you’re expected to do moving forward not for what you have already done.  GMs are playing the numbers which overwhelmingly support that human beings that play the RB position more often than not peak at age 27 or younger before their play starts to decline and as such don’t deserve mega multi year contracts that go significantly beyond that point which is unfortunate  for guys that play RB since they’re usually coming up for their 2nd contract around age 26-27 or can be tagged up to that point if they were later round picks or UDFA that outperformed.  I’m not sure how you fix it without breaking something else.  I think eliminating the tag, for instance, would be to the detriment of smaller market teams and of the competitive balance of the league.

Teams do still value having a strong run game.  I think that might be the underlying point flgatorsandjags is really making.  GMs have just realized en masse that there are more cap efficient ways to build and maintain one rather than throw good money at a likely declining player.

I kinda want to see what would happen if each team could have 1 RB not count against the tag. Would teams invest in the position, or still go the route of young and cheap?

It think the more likely option would be to unify the tag for all offensive skill positions- TE and WR might take a hit financially in the short-term, but it would probably also mean that RB aren't forced to play on the tag, and could seek out longer extensions once their rookie deals run out. TE and WR might be cheap for a year, but if they are top players their resulting deals are gonna break bank and set that tag ever higher.

If teams had to sacrifice a darft pick to use the tag, how many would? At what round would that be a fair penalty, but still used by a team? I don't think it should be a first, but if you lost a third to tag a player, would you?

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The NFLPA is not going to radically change the rules for one position at the detriment of the others. The game evolves and position values change along with it.

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“An empty vessel makes the loudest sound, so they that have the least wit are the greatest babblers.”. - Plato

- shorten college careers for RB - Wish I copied the source, but one of the arguments was that college wears a lot of these RB down (Oh hai Mike Hart), and they are spent by the time they reach the league and play out a 4 year rookie deal. The proposal was to reduce the post-HS duration for a collegiate RB to be darft eligible. I saw this becoming a classification issue - any athletic player in college would want to be classified as an RB to get out of school and get that contract faster. NIL may slow that pace, but too early to really tell yet.  --- I love this because players like Fournette was totally ready for the NFL at age 19 and was totally beat by the time he got to the NFL as well.  Won't happen because other positions will demand equal rights.

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The NFLPA is not going to radically change the rules for one position at the detriment of the others. The game evolves and position values change along with it.  Totally agree.

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Tony Dungy is no stranger to routing RB money elsewhere to make efficient use of cap space.
Edge had two good years left in the tank - but it didn't make sense for them to be spent with the colts.

https://twitter.com/TonyDungy/status/168...30337?s=20

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Tony Dungy is no stranger to routing RB money elsewhere to make efficient use of cap space.
Edge had two good years left in the tank - but it didn't make sense for them to be spent with the colts.

https://twitter.com/TonyDungy/status/168...30337?s=20

Yeah, they just drafted another RB in the first to replace him

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Tony Dungy is no stranger to routing RB money elsewhere to make efficient use of cap space.
Edge had two good years left in the tank - but it didn't make sense for them to be spent with the colts.

https://twitter.com/TonyDungy/status/168...30337?s=20

Yeah, they just drafted another RB in the first to replace him

Yep, 30th overall to a team that already had a Super Bowl quality roster led by a HOF QB. Almost like the RB was the least important part of the offense since they let their All Pro RB go and replaced him with a kid who stepped in and did just fine.

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“An empty vessel makes the loudest sound, so they that have the least wit are the greatest babblers.”. - Plato

The game changed. Some teams are already reverting back a bit to use the current game against their opponents. The tacks have done it for years with Henry. You see the Giants doing it. The 49ers doing it. Baltimore, etc.

We just saw two RBs get selected in the top 15 back in April. We still see some RBs going in RD1 here and there. Everything is cyclical. Pat Mahomes and Joe Burrow cant be Pat Mahomes and Joe Burrow if they're on the bench for more than half a game.

Controlling tempo and clock management is going to come back at some point via running the football. As LBs and SSs get lighter? You watch. Teams will start adding heavier lineman, the FB position and traditional TEs to tee off on them and make short work out of them.

You could make the argument that Pederson is doing it already based on April's draft class. Strange, Bigsby and Parish are all in that power, heavy handed run mold offensively.

At some point. 1500 yard rushers will start to climb and 4500+ yard passers will start to decline. Its all trendy.

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Sorry to pick on this particular comment, but I see Bigsby described this way a lot around here. Is that really his game though?  Admittedly, I don't watch a lot of college football.  I watch highlights of offensive players for fantasy dynasty league purposes, but that's mostly it.  Bigsby's measurables are similar to ETN's.  The difference is ETN is an inch or so shorter and a few pounds heavier and noticeably faster.  Also, ETN has Bigsby on the vert and broad jump category which can be an indication of lower body strength/burst.  Bigsby did outpace ETN on the bench by a few reps.

In watching Bigsby's highlights, his game seems very similar to ETN's to me.  He's quick enough, he has good vision and he's a threat in the passing game as well.  I didn't see a lot of him powering through and over guys or dragging piles.  Sure he's good at breaking arm tackles, but that doesn't necessarily mean he's the short yardage power back. I know that's not specifically what you said above, but I've seen it mentioned here multiple times since we drafted him.  ETN breaks arm tackles as well, but it's somewhat clear short yardage/stacked line/power run situations are probably not what he's best suited for and I would argue that his measurables are more desirable in the short yardage/power category than Bigsby's.

All this leads me to wonder, did I miss something about Bigsby's game by only watching a few 5 minute long clips of highlights of his college career, or are we mistakenly presuming he's significantly more of a power back than ETN or other guys on the roster because his nickname is "Tank"?

From what I have read about him around various scouting reports.

He's a good zone scheme fit. He's a short yardage player with a lot of work inside the redzone. Lacks burst and 3rd level speed gear wise but has good short burst and power. Has been known to create yardage in spite of no blocking. Sound familiar?

Snoop Conner Draft and Combine Prospect Profile | NFL.com

I think it depends on how Doug uses them. I can only recall what I saw a few years back with the Eagles. Where he had a healthy mix of all purpose backs and H-backs enabling him to create some mismatch and misdirection plays out of the backfield. We'll probably see a lot more tighter play designs along the line this year. Strange and Engram in motion with Etienne being split out wide and Bigsby and Parish out of the backfield. 

Maybe it's more of an "illusion" of power running, if that makes sense. Strange will be leading the way though from what I saw out of his Penn State highlights.

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"What do I know of cultured ways, the gilt, the craft and the lie? I, who was born in a naked land and bred in the open sky. The subtle tongue, the sophist guile, they fail when the broadswords sing; Rush in and die, dogs - I was a man before I was a king."

Tony Dungy is no stranger to routing RB money elsewhere to make efficient use of cap space.
Edge had two good years left in the tank - but it didn't make sense for them to be spent with the colts.

https://twitter.com/TonyDungy/status/168...30337?s=20

That's an easy numbers game to play. James was good during his time but it was clear with Manning that you had to focus on what was more important. His ability to read and react and get the easy, short stuff in and out of his hands always was an option to compensate for a lack luster running game. They used to run the hell out of those screens that Kansas City does now. 

Harrison, Wayne, Clark >>> James. 

I think moving forward though, RB's can be incentivized and motivated to run harder in their prime knowing they're not going to see some of these 2nd and 3rd contracts that the other position groups get. Set milestones in the contract language that the owners are on the hook for. 

If 500 yards is hit - You're owed an X amount of payout in guarantees.
If 1,000 yards is hit - You're owed an additional X amount of payout in guarantees.
If 1,500 yards is hit - You're owed an additional X amount of payout in guarantees at a pro-rate based upon the average of the current top three paid RB's.

Same can be done with total amount of carries, total amount of TD's, etc. I think it's somewhat fair. It just needs to be normalized. This goes back to how Clowney was being tagged a few years ago and everybody got into a debate about where he fits in exactly on a pay scale system in the NFL. They were breaking down his snap counts between OLB and DE and they were trying to literally short change him by tagging him at a position of lesser value. I think a similar situation came up when Deebo Samuel's extension was mentioned. He's a WR/RB but tends to be uniquely good at both roles interchangeably. 

Nobody is going to get mad about paying a RB extra money on top of his base salary if he's hitting specific targets that benefit the team and his personal bank account. And for those that might argue, "Well, what if he gets to the 10 yard line and he's 1 TD away from hitting a bonus but they pull him out of the line-up?".

Not the teams problem. Maybe he should have ran harder three plays earlier to hit that TD goal. Maybe he should have worked harder on his footwork so the turf monster didn't get him just 5 yards shy in last week's game before stumbling to the ground. Maybe he should have hit the weights harder in the summer so he could have broken that tackle at 2nd and goal, etc.

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"What do I know of cultured ways, the gilt, the craft and the lie? I, who was born in a naked land and bred in the open sky. The subtle tongue, the sophist guile, they fail when the broadswords sing; Rush in and die, dogs - I was a man before I was a king."

Yeah, they just drafted another RB in the first to replace him

Yep, 30th overall to a team that already had a Super Bowl quality roster led by a HOF QB. Almost like the RB was the least important part of the offense since they let their All Pro RB go and replaced him with a kid who stepped in and did just fine.

They still had a number of holes on that defense and also could of upgraded a few players on that oline.  So now it's OK to draft a RB in the 1st when you have a great QB and WRs while with holes on the D and oline could be upgraded?

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