The running back position is strong once again, and we find ourselves raising the value once again cause of these numbers.
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00:00Grant and Danny on the fan. Welcome back. Thank you for making the show part of your day.
00:04I think the running back value is climbing in the as we get ready for the draft.
00:12Here are some of the points that I would bring up. Read a good story on this ESPN.com.
00:17Obviously, the reason for the conversation is Aston Gentry, who was the first running back invited to the Heisman ceremony since 2017.
00:24Anybody remember who the running back was in 2017 that was invited to the Heisman Trophy ceremony?
00:34The last one before Ashton Gentry. Opened anyone.
00:39Mark Ingram? No. Toby Gerhardt? No.
00:43Michael James? No. Love the guesses. Keep them going.
00:47Derrick Henry? Saquon Barkley. No, no.
00:50Somebody has said a player that went to the same school as the player.
00:54LeGarrette Blount? No.
00:58Derrick Henry? No.
00:59I said that.
00:59Bryce Love? Yes!
01:01Oh, wow.
01:02Let's go.
01:03Bryce Love.
01:04Drafted by the Washington Redskins.
01:07Oh, wow.
01:08Who he would never play for. He had like a degenerative knee problem.
01:09Didn't he play for them, though? Weren't people excited about him for four years?
01:12Well, they were very. Yes is the answer to that.
01:15But he did not play.
01:16But, Gentry at Boise State was kind of what Saquon Barkley was for the Eagles this year.
01:23In that, he led the team to an area that no one really thought they were going to go to.
01:29In the Eagles' case, it was winning the Super Bowl this season.
01:31And for Gentry, they went to the college football playoff.
01:35He was quoted as saying it's a great time to enter the league as a running back
01:38because the value is back at the position and there's going to be money coming back in.
01:42It has been 30 years since a running back has gone number one overall in the NFL draft.
01:49Anybody care to guess who the last running back to go 1-1 was?
01:5430 years ago this year.
01:57So, what is it? Okay, that's in the 90s.
01:59Danny, you should pull this.
02:00I should pull it.
02:01Okay, this is, I'm ripping through.
02:04Barry Sanders.
02:05No.
02:06After.
02:07Mid-90s.
02:08Oh, yeah, that would have been there.
02:10I should be able to get this.
02:12But I'm on the spot.
02:13I'll give you a team.
02:14This will do it.
02:15Cincinnati Bengals.
02:19I should be able to do that.
02:22Post, it's after Icky Woods.
02:24I thought this would be easy, honestly.
02:25It probably is.
02:26He played for the Washington Redskins and Marty Schottenheimer in 2001.
02:34Oh, come on.
02:36Just tell me, I'm not going to pull it.
02:37He went to Penn State.
02:40Kajana Carter?
02:40Yes, there it is.
02:41Okay, God, dang.
02:42Kajana Carter.
02:44Last time a running back went 1-1, bro.
02:4630 years ago.
02:48So, the debate they had at the start of this story was, will we ever see it again?
02:51So, let's start there before I get into the value climbing.
02:54Do you think we'll see a running back go first overall in our lifetime?
02:57I do.
02:57You do?
02:58Everything is cyclical.
02:59So, what was undervalued becomes the floodgates open and everybody does it.
03:05Then, what's overvalued, you know, diminishes.
03:07And then, the next most valuable position will be something else.
03:10We're going to go through cycles.
03:11Right now, everyone's concerned with stopping the deep pass.
03:15So, it's a running back renaissance time.
03:17Like, you look at the top 10 rush attempt guys.
03:19I think 70% of them were first-round picks.
03:22This is like the era that we're in right now.
03:24So, yeah, I could see it.
03:24But, I can't see the running back position becoming valuable enough that you would take
03:29it over a quarterback or a tackle or something like that, even in our lifetime.
03:33And, I could be wrong.
03:34Things change fast.
03:35But, what I do think is it's possible that there's somebody that's just so special.
03:39Like, what Gentee did, but let's say it's at Alabama.
03:41What Gentee did, but it's in the SEC at LSU or in the Big Ten at Ohio State or something.
03:47But, he has the same numbers in the same year.
03:49And, he's a little faster.
03:49And, he's a little bigger.
03:50And, maybe it's like Adrian Peterson where people go, this guy's the greatest college
03:55running back who's ever lived.
03:56And, someone needs an RB at one.
03:57And, that's the year that it happens.
03:59I guess that's possible.
04:00But, Mel Kuyper's got Gentee going six.
04:03And, Amariah and Hampton out of North Carolina going 12.
04:06So, he's got two RBs in the top 12.
04:09That would liken to when B. John Robinson went eight to the Falcons.
04:13And, then the Lions traded up to 12 for Jameer Gibbs.
04:15And, everyone made fun of them.
04:17Who we'll get to in a second.
04:18Again, Kuyper's got three backs going in the second round this year.
04:22Five total in the first two rounds.
04:24Last year, Danny, there was one running back that went in the first two rounds of the NFL draft.
04:29And, that is part of why I'm using that to say, there is this feeling going into the draft
04:34like the tide has turned at the running back position again.
04:37And, you ask people around the league, as they did in this story, why is that?
04:41Is it true?
04:42Has the tide turned a little bit?
04:43To use your parlance, is it a cyclical thing and the cycle has changed?
04:47Well, Barkley carried the Eagles to the Super Bowl.
04:50We just saw that happen.
04:51Former top five pick.
04:53Derrick Henry beat Father Time again.
04:56The last time we had two running backs in the NFL, the top two rushers, combine for over 3,700 yards.
05:05It was Sean Alexander and Tiki Barber in 2005.
05:09How about that?
05:09You know, the sum of RB1 and RB2 and yardage.
05:1305, 20 years ago.
05:14This year, almost 4,000 yards between the two.
05:17Barkley went for 2,000, could have gone for more, sat in the final week, would have broke the record.
05:21And, Derrick Henry was just shy of 2,000 yards with the Ravens.
05:25But, we almost had two 2,000-yard rushers in the same season, which is crazy.
05:29It's happened like six times ever.
05:31We've seen the offensive player of the year.
05:33The best offensive player in the league, not a quarterback, right?
05:38OPOY.
05:40Be named a running back, back-to-back years.
05:43Obviously, this year it was Saquon.
05:45Last year it was Christian McCaffrey from San Francisco.
05:47The last time we had RBs, just take a guess in years, in consecutive seasons, that were the OPOY.
05:55The player of the year, best non-quarterback, was not a receiver for two straight years.
05:59When would you guess?
06:0014, 15.
06:0105, 06.
06:02Oh, wow.
06:02Sean Alexander, LaDainian Tomlinson.
06:04There you go.
06:05Which was back when you were force-feeding.
06:06Remember when, like, fantasy football?
06:08Oh, yeah.
06:08It was like, draft your horse.
06:09If you don't get one of those three guys at the top, forget the year.
06:13And you also, I remember, I am old enough to remember when you used to start your fantasy draft by taking two running backs or you were screwed.
06:20Uh-huh.
06:20Like, oh, I'll get a receiver eventually.
06:22But I don't have my two running backs yet, so it can wait.
06:24Yeah, bell cow, bell cow.
06:26In 1995, I mentioned this on the show yesterday.
06:29This was my favorite stat in this piece.
06:31There were nine running backs that ran the ball 300 times.
06:34Nine.
06:34In 2023, there were zero.
06:38Last year, we were back up to six different guys with 300 carries, including Barkley, who was 45 over the threshold.
06:45Henry, who was 25 over the threshold.
06:48If you look at the draft, since 1996, top five positions taken in the top ten.
06:54I know that's wordy, so I'll say it again.
06:56Top ten picks, the five positions drafted most often since 96.
07:02Quarterback is one.
07:03Sure.
07:03Tackle is two.
07:05Wide receiver is three.
07:07Edge or defensive end is four.
07:09And then DB is five.
07:10So I guess they're putting corner and safety together.
07:12But do you realize there have been almost twice as many defensive backs taken in the top ten as running backs since 1996?
07:22Isn't that shocking?
07:24Corners and safeties?
07:25There have been 43 DBs and just 23 running backs over a span of 30 years in the top ten.
07:34Yeah.
07:34I would say that makes sense to me, just given where the league was emphasizing and was going.
07:40It's about passing, passing effectively, and then stopping the passing.
07:43But that's through the early 2000s.
07:45That's the end of the 90s.
07:47That's during the great era of running backs we just talked about.
07:49It really kicks off in earnest with greatest show on turf and then the rise of Peyton Manning and Brady and company, Aaron Rodgers, the prolific passing games, Drew Brees that everyone was copying.
08:00So I could see that.
08:01B. John Robinson went for 1450 yards.
08:04Falcons almost make the playoffs in a year where their quarterbacks hurt and benched, and they go to a rookie at the end of the season.
08:10Jameer Gibbs, I will never forget draft night.
08:13I loved him as a player.
08:14But they got destroyed for trading up to take him at 12.
08:18Obliterated.
08:19You can't take a running back in the first round.
08:21You can't trade up and take Jameer Gibbs.
08:23What are you doing?
08:24They took him in 2023.
08:25This past season, he was a game changer.
08:28Has been really since he got into the league.
08:30But Amonra St.
08:32Brown, their beloved slot wide receiver, 34 plays last year of 15 or more yards.
08:37Explosives, 34 of them was number three in the NFL.
08:40Jameer Gibbs had 33 of them.
08:42One less than St.
08:44Brown, who ranked third in the National Football League.
08:46And we care more now about explosives than we ever have, Danny, because we're getting smarter.
08:50The quote that they had in this story from Dave Canales, who talked to ESPN at the league meetings about this, said explosive plays are close to the turnover margin in terms of importance.
09:01If you can have a plus three margin in explosives over the years, we've learned that that almost equals getting a ball from the opponent.
09:08It's really close in percentage in terms of leading to wins.
09:10Meaning, they've always said turnover margin's most important.
09:18Now it might just be, did you make more big plays than them?
09:22And when running backs like Jameer Gibbs, or what I think Amarion Hampton's going to be as an example, or Ashton Gentry, if it's him, if they can do it, it's what I've said all along with Washington needing a weapon.
09:30I don't give a damn if it's a wide receiver.
09:32I need speed, and I need someone who could strike up the band and hit a home run.
09:35And I'd prefer it to be a running back, honestly, because they touch the ball more, and the speed is more impactful because you're involved more often.
09:42Here's just a way to quantify this, too, which I think is interesting.
09:45I picked a nice round number 10 years ago, okay?
09:48Go back to 2015.
09:49There were seven players that ran for 1,000 yards.
09:53If you add that to nine, if it carried out to 900, I think there were a total of nine or 10 players that ran for 900 yards.
09:59So that's your bell cow, but maybe missed a game or two, something like that, right?
10:02This past year, there were 16 1,000-yard rushers, more than twice as many.
10:07If you expand it to 900, again, that same category of guys that missed some time, there were 22 players that ran for more than 900 yards.
10:17We're here now.
10:18We are in the era of running the football, and again, I think it's reactionary.
10:22I think what happened was people got sick and tired of deep passes, of deep shots, of chunk yardage, of passing games, dicing them apart, and they said, fine, we're backing off.
10:31We'll play that shell.
10:32I'm not going to give up 400 yards passing.
10:35I'll play deeper, and if you want to take four yards at a time on the ground, so be it.
10:39And you happen to have a couple of great exceptions to the rule, guys that usually age way worse.
10:45Derrick Henry usually is Earl Campbell or Eddie George.
10:48You fall off a cliff.
10:49He doesn't, 30 years old, ran for almost 2,000 yards.
10:52You mentioned Barkley, after a bunch of injuries, has a healthy season and could have set the rushing record.
10:56But you go down the list, we are in an era right now of running backs being the bell cow when we thought it was nothing but committees from here on out and trying to keep guys healthy, etc.
11:05Again, 22 players ran for at least 900 yards at the running back spot.
11:10Remarkable.