• The Philadelphia Eagles may be one of the most advanced franchises in sports, but it doesn’t take an analytics department to understand how they approached the running back market in March.
Want to one-line it? Here you go …
Here’s that simple logic in real terms: The price, even at the top of the running back market, was equal to what it cost some teams to pay a second or third receiver. Case in point, Philadelphia’s deal for Saquon Barkley was very similar in total money and guarantees to what the Atlanta Falcons gave Darnell Mooney.
In Mooney’s best season—before this one—he had 87 touches for 1,087 yards and five touchdowns. Barkley, by comparison, had a three-game stretch last year, in his final year as a New York Giant (a lost year for him, by the way) where he had 91 touches.
If a team does a three-year deal at about $13 million per year and it strikes out on someone like Mooney and keeps winning otherwise, it may never be raised as a problem again. But when it happens with a running back, it’s an indictment on the entire position?
Anyway, it certainly caught my attention this offseason when the three biggest buyers on the veteran running back market—the Baltimore Ravens, Eagles and Green Bay Packers—happened to be three perennial playoff teams that generally are ahead of the curve on these things.
You won’t believe what happened next.
The NFL’s rushing leader chart through 16 weeks (and 15 games) …
1)Saquon Barkley, Eagles: 1,838 yards
2)Derrick Henry, Ravens: 1,636 yards
3)Kyren Williams, Los Angeles Rams: 1,243 yards
4)Josh Jacobs, Packers: 1,216 yards
Philly, Baltimore and Green Bay have all clinched playoff spots with two weeks left in the regular season, and have built offensive identities around those veteran backs.
To me, it’s another sign that what’s smart in football is always a moving target.
Those three teams happened to be the cats, rather than the mice.
