In 2024, the Baltimore Ravens and Philadelphia Eagles decided to bring in Derrick Henry and Saquon Barkley to help strengthen their already great running games. This move led to two all time great rushing seasons. These teams both jumped into the top 6 rushing yards by an NFL team since 1950 with over 3000 rushing yards each. Additionally, the 2024-25 championship run by the Philadelphia Eagles, led by Saquon was the first time a pro bowl running back won a superbowl since 2013. These bring into question: Is the running back position back?

In the 2023 season, people started to believe the running back position was dying. Christian McCaffrey led the league with 1459 rushing yards, but no other running back was able to crack 1200. This led to an offseason where elite and starting level running backs were free agents. Notable running backs that switched teams this season include: Derrick Henry, Saquon Barkley, Josh Jacobs, Aaron Jones, Joe Mixon, D’Andre Swift, Tony Pollard, Austin Ekeler. These contracts were only getting paid 6-12.5 million dollars a year. For reference, Gabe Davis, who is currently a free agent, received a 3 year, 39 million dollar deal despite never cracking 900 yards and realistically was only getting paid for his 4td, 200 yard game against Kansas City. During the 2024 seasons, Davis only caught for 239 yards and 2 touchdowns for 13 million and Henry rushed for 1921 yards and 16 touchdowns for 8 million. Evidently running backs were grossly undervalued which led to extensions for Barkley and Henry giving them 20 and 15 million dollars, respectively.

A look at the fall off of the running back position can be seen in the draft. In the 2024 season, 6 of the last 10 rushing leaders were picked in days 2 or 3. Yet in this year's draft the Raiders decided to pick Ashton Jeanty 6th overall. Will this pick work out? We’ll see. Since 2015, the only first round running backs to still be on their team are Travis Etienne, Jamhyr Gibbs, and Bijan Robinson. Gibbs and Robinson are currently seen as top 10 running backs with only two years in the league. Yet Etienne is coming off his worst season and is losing snaps to his backup, Tank Bigsby. Every other running back is either thriving on another team (Jacobs, Barkley, McCaffrey) or out of the league (Fournette, Penny, Gurley,). The average running back in the first round will play around 54 games. For all running backs, they will average 2.5 seasons. These numbers are far fewer than other positions. Considering their low hit rate and high injury probability, this causes many organizations to devalue running backs as a position and ignore them. Why draft a running back in the first round or pay your star running back when you could use a 5th round pick and get a solid player.

While running backs aren’t valued that much, on the field, they are one of the most important positions. 12 running backs have won the MVP award which is the most among non-quarterback positions. They touch the ball most out of every non-quarterback position (around 15-20 touches per game). They can run, catch, block and even be the centerstone of a team’s offense. Coaches and organizations value running backs on the field, but don’t want to compensate them for their work. With the evolution of the NFL into a pass first league and with all the rules favoring quarterbacks and passing, the running back position has sadly been at one of its worst positions in recent history.