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Well done. You've sorted through the embarrassment of riches that is the modern podcast landscape and found me Rob Briden on my podcast.

In this series of Briden and I talk to, among others, Harry Hill, Ben Elton, Charlotte Church, Steve Cougan and Dame Harriet Walter.

And that's just a few. We tend to chat for about 45 minutes to an hour never longer. It's terrific conversation,

reminiscent where appropriate and exchange of anecdotes. So do join me Rob Briden wherever you get your podcasts.

New episodes of Briden and are available early and ad-free on Amazon Music or by subscribing to Wondery Plus in Apple Podcasts or the Wondery app.

This is my leverage. My leverage is, I can say, Q to the Giants, I can say, Q to my teammates and be like, you want me to show you my work? You want me to show you how valuable I am to the team? I won't show up.

Perhaps the biggest story of this NFL off season was start running back after start running back, trying and failing to get the huge contract they feel they deserve.

Sequan Barclay came to terms on a one-year day with the Giants. Who benefits more from this deal? Player of the club. Oh the club, big time the club.

This is like getting a nice cup of coffee and you put a tiny little bit of sweetener in it and it tastes a little bit better.

And with running backs losing out and contract negotiations over and over again and their careers continuing to shorten, some people feel we've reached the end of the star running back era.

Today Joe Rexroad of the Athletic explains how we got here and what the changes we're seeing in football could mean for the future of the sport.

I feel bad that it's gone this way for running backs and again I hope I am being panicky when I think about great running backs who end up playing something else because of this market.

Plus what running backs might be able to do to help their cause. From Wondery, I'm Anders Keltow. It's Wednesday, September 6th and this is The Lead.

So Joe, I wanted to start this conversation with a little bit of nostalgia. My question is growing up, who was the running back or who were the running backs that most captivated you?

Well, Anders, I'm a reformed Detroit Lions fan. I'm happy to say when I was young and just first getting in the NFL, Billy Sims was a guy.

I think a lot of people don't realize how good Billy Sims was.

I'm Billy Sims, wide open. There it goes. From where I can't catch him.

I had been winter out of Oklahoma. He came into the league that was, I'd say, Walter Payton, Earl Campbell, where the dominant running back stars in the NFL at the time.

But he was as good as anyone for a few years. Torres ACL and that awful silver dome parking lot of a field. And back then, you know, an ACL often meant into your career and it did for him.

Then a few years later, Barry Sanders comes along.

I think whether you're a Lions fan or not, if you're a football fan, you had to put down whatever you were doing and watch when he played.

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