The problem for NFL running backs
Post Reports
The Washington Post
4.4 • 5.1K Ratings
🗓️ 3 August 2023
⏱️ 23 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Running backs used to be among the most famous — and best-paid — players in football. But the game has changed and so has their status. Today on “Post Reports,” what that means for the sport and these players — and how they might be able to change it.
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The traditional running back has moved to the margins. The position is dangerous and injury-prone, but increasingly NFL teams are finding it makes business sense not to commit to these players long-term.
Feeling underappreciated and underpaid, running backs have started trying to push back.
On a recent Zoom meeting in which running backs commiserated about their shrinking market, Cleveland Browns star Nick Chubb admitted to reporters, “Right now, there’s really nothing we can do.”
Today on “Post Reports,” sports columnist Jerry Brewer breaks it down
and tells us what could happen next.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Right now, the NFL, it belongs to quarterbacks. |
| 0:05.3 | They are the faces of the league, and Rogers and Patrick Mahomes get the endorsements. |
| 0:10.5 | Take some state farm. |
| 0:11.8 | I really want that personal price plan, so I'll admit it, I'm a bath bomb guy. |
| 0:17.1 | Quarterbacks get the lion's share of the glory, and more importantly, the money. |
| 0:22.7 | But there was a time when running backs shared that spotlight. |
| 0:26.1 | So the non-football people running backs were the ones running with the ball. |
| 0:29.9 | And running backs had commercials. |
| 0:33.1 | Hi, I'm Emmett, and I'm a cowboy. |
| 0:37.7 | This is my head. |
| 0:39.7 | Kids used to want to be running backs. |
| 0:42.1 | Playing in the backyard, they'd copy moves. |
| 0:44.7 | They'd see their heroes use during Sunday Night Games. |
| 0:47.8 | The NFL would put out highlight packages of these players dominating the field, basically |
| 0:52.7 | turning them into gods. |
| 0:55.5 | They stampede a head like angry bulls. |
| 1:01.7 | They'd dance out of danger's way. |
| 1:08.3 | Their speed lets them leave the others behind. |
| 1:14.3 | Their grace is the game's ballet. |
| 1:19.9 | Teams used to build their entire offense around running backs. |
| 1:23.1 | And they'd often pay them huge contracts. |
| 1:26.1 | But the market for running backs has crashed. |
... |
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