Saquon Barkley and NFL RBs are getting a taste of the real world, where jobs aren't valued as they once were
Back in the day, NFL salaries were so modest that even star players had to take offseason jobs to make a living.
Two-time MVP Don Hutson, for example, worked in a lumber mill along with some Green Bay Packer teammates. Bears tackle Willis Brennan was a Chicago cop. Cleveland’s John Wooten taught high school math. Even the great Jim Brown, arguably the best running back of all time, was a marketing rep for Pepsi in the 1960s.
It was said this helped connect athletes with fans. They were one of us. And maybe it did. Those days are gone, of course. Even the league minimums put players in, or at least near, the top 1 percent of salaries.
Enter Saquon Barkley, who certainly won’t be clipping coupons any time soon, but may have channeled the old days in a new way Tuesday when he agreed to a one-year, $11 million deal with the New York Giants.
The money is enormous, of course. It’s just not as enormous as you might expect from a player of Barkley’s productivity, let alone obvious talent.
He rushed for a career-high 1,312 yards last year and scored 10 touchdowns. He added another 338 yards as a receiver. Maybe most important, he moved past a couple of injury-plagued seasons and started 16 regular-season games and two more in the playoffs.
And yet, the Giants wanted no part of a rich, long-term deal. He’s just another guy.
Welcome to the real world.
Barkley is like a lot of workers, the value placed on his job is no longer what it once was. The old adage that pro athletes leaned on when people complained about soaring salaries is that you are worth what someone will pay you.
For Barkley and this generation of running backs, that worth is less than it used to be.
A generation ago star backs such as Emmitt Smith and Terrell Davis were among the league leaders in salaries. Not anymore. This is a quarterback league and everything is focused on getting a quarterback, protecting a quarterback or stopping a quarterback. Running backs, even a great one such as Barkley, are worth only so much, especially as they age off their rookie contracts.
Per Spotrac, the highest-paid position in the NFL is left tackle, a job that requires guarding the QB's blindside. They average $8.95 million per season. Next up, right tackles at $5.13 million.
QBs come in $5 million, a number dragged down by low-paid backups on rookie salaries. In terms of total cash payout for the 2023 season, QBs hold the top five spots, including $80 million that Baltimore’s Lamar Jackson will earn.
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After that, average salaries are as such: free safety ($4.98M), strong safety ($4.44M), inside linebacker ($3.84M), outside linebacker ($3.63M), edge rusher ($3.18M), defensive tackle ($2.95M), guard ($2.49M), center ($2.41M), wide receiver ($2.25M), place kicker ($2.13M), cornerback ($2.0M), tight end ($1.99M) and then, and only then, running back at $1.76 million.
The only positions with lower average salaries? Punter at $1.54 million and long snapper at $1.07 million.
That’s the harsh reality for a glamor position.
Barkley and other running backs have lamented their declining value, even holding a running back conference call recently. There were rumors of a position-only strike or some other way to try to reverse this trend.
It’s understandable. Barkley has contributed mightily to the Giants. Advanced stats, which fuel status quo thinking, show that even the best running backs are no longer worth much more than the average running back though. That certainly isn’t the case with Patrick Mahomes or Joe Burrow.
That’s how industries evolve. That’s how careers change. Jobs get shipped. Technology comes along. If the NFL could use Artificial Intelligence to create a running back, it would.
This is capitalism. This is the free market. It might be frustrating. If Barkley was born two decades ago he’d likely be making $30 million.
Consider Barry Sanders, who in 1997, at the age of 29 and with 2,384 carries under his belt, signed a five-year deal with Detroit for an average of $5.7 million per year. It was just above Dallas QB Troy Aikman’s $5.67 annual average and thus made Sanders the highest-paid player.
Barkley, meanwhile, is just 26 and has just 954 career carries. Yet durability concerns are an issue.
With no choice, with little bargaining power, Barkley did what most workers do. He took the best deal he could.
No one needs to hold a fundraiser for the Saquon. He’s going to be fine.
But for the first time since your postman might have also been a moonlighting linebacker trying to knock out the offseason mortgage, an NFL star and the regular fan might have a little more in common.
