The NFL was different in 2015 than it is now. Or the value of running backs was, at least.
But Brad Holmes still follows the same guiding principles as general manager of the Detroit Lions that he did eight years ago, when he was college scouting director of the St. Louis Rams and they took Todd Gurley with the 10th pick of the draft.
“I just kind of look at it as they’re all football players,” Holmes said Thursday from Allen Park in his pre-draft news conference. “They’re all football players. If they can help you, they can help you. And I understand the narrative about (running backs), but if you think that player is that good and if he’s out there producing for you then I don’t think anybody’s going to look back and say — I don’t think anybody said in 2016 or ’17 or ’18 that, ‘Oh, man, Todd Gurley, you picked him at 10.’ Like, no, he was just a really good running back and he was one of the top prospects in the draft. So yeah, we didn’t really bat an eye about it.”
Gurley is among the last of the Mohicans, a top-10 pick at a position that used to dominate the NFL.
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Ezekiel Elliott went fourth overall to the Dallas Cowboys in 2016. Leonard Fournette and Christian McCaffrey were top-eight picks in 2017. And Saquon Barkley went second overall in 2018, the highest-drafted running back since Reggie Bush in 2006.
In the four drafts since, no running back has gone higher than 24th, and last year no backs went in the first round for the third time in modern draft history.
“I think (NFL teams) value (running backs), they just don’t prioritize them in the first round,” ESPN analyst Mel Kiper Jr. said recently. “I think that’s what you have to differentiate there. They certainly have great value as a player and what they mean to your team and you get immediate production out of a rookie. I’ve always said, it’s the only position in football where a rookie running back can play better and be expected to play as good or better that year than he will his entire career. By the fourth, fifth year, they’re moving along. So they are ready to go. They’re plug and play. As long as they block, they’re plug and play.”
Running backs have a long history of contributing as rookies, and the top two backs taken last year, Breece Hall and Kenneth Walker, averaged a combined 4.9 yards per carry on teams that showed significant improvement from 2021.
But as plug-and-play as some running backs are, many teams view them as dime-a-dozen injury risks who should be avoided high in the draft.
Hall and Walker missed 12 combined games with injuries as second-round picks last season, while the second-to-last back drafted, Isiah Pacheco had similar success, rushing for 830 yards in 17 games — 11 of them starts — for the Super Bowl champion Kansas City Chiefs.
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Players like Barkley and McCaffrey remain top producers at running back. Gurley was a shooting star who had four electric seasons before his career fizzled because of knee injuries, Elliott is out of work after seven seasons with the Dallas Cowboys, and as catchy as his nickname is, “Playoff Lenny” never quite delivered on his status as the No. 4 overall pick.
“My philosophy on kind of running backs is I don’t mind taking a running back in the first round, as long as your team is ready to win right now,” said NFL Network analyst Daniel Jeremiah, a former scout with the Baltimore Ravens and Philadelphia Eagles. “Because if you take into account the guy’s got four, five, six years of elite production, I don’t mind getting him in the first round because you get the extra year on the contract. It’s easy to control it and then I’ve got a franchise tag number if I want, and that could kind of take me through all of his prime.
“But I don’t want to waste carries on a crappy team. I want to have all of his carries over that five-year period count and help us push towards a championship. So to take a big-time running back like that and your team stinks, you’re going to waste his prime and it’s not going to do anything for you.”
That’s the conundrum some NFL teams will face in the April 27-29 draft, where Texas running back Bijan Robinson is widely considered one of the top talents available, but no one knows his floor because of positional value.
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Robinson would make sense for contending teams with top-10 picks like the Lions (who pick sixth and 18th in the first round) and Philadelphia Eagles (10th and 31st), or he could last into the 20s where teams like the Cowboys, Los Angeles Chargers and Buffalo Bills have running back needs.
Analytically speaking, some would argue it never makes sense to spend a high draft pick on a running back considering the opportunity cost of acquiring the player, the unlikelihood of signing him to a second contract and the complementary nature of the position in today’s NFL.
The counter: Top running backs can be difference makers in the NFL, and taking the right one high puts him under team control at a market discount during his prime years. The sixth pick of this year’s draft, for example, will sign a four-year contract worth about $28 million, an average of $7 million per season; McCaffrey is currently the highest-paid back in the NFL at an average annual value of about $16 million.
Robinson, because of his dual-threat ability, every-down skill set and collegiate production, could be the rare back teams value enough to go high in the draft.
He averaged 6.3 yards per carry during his three-year career at Texas. He won the Doak Walker Award last season as the nation’s top running back, when he led all of college football in broken tackles, and is considered one of the best pass-catching backs in the draft.
For the Lions, he could be to Jared Goff what Gurley meant to Goff early in both their careers. Goff played alongside Gurley with the Rams in 2016-19.
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“I think he’s special,” ESPN analyst Todd McShay said. “I see the Saquon and I see the McCaffrey (in him), and I’ve talked to several (teams) that think that they would like to utilize him in more of a McCaffrey role where it’s, yes, running back, but a lot of screens, put him in the slot, utilize him that way. Listen, I have him as the No. 2 player in this draft. I can’t speak highly enough about him.”
Robinson said it doesn’t matter how high he goes or what value NFL teams place on running backs. He plans to make whatever team takes him feel good about their pick.
“I think that God has a plan for wherever I’m going to be at personally, and you just never know on that day where you’re going to go,” Robinson said at the NFL combine in early March. “For me it’s important to just keep enjoying the moment cause we might get to draft day and some surprise could happen, we just never know. So for me I’m just trying to just keep staying positive, always know that the blessings are here and just keep having fun doing that.”
Contact Dave Birkett at dbirkett@freepress.com. Follow him on Twitter @davebirkett.