Reggie Bush Release Further Saturates Flooded Free-Agent Running Back Market

It wasn't that long ago when running backs were among the highest-paid players in football. As recently as 2011, the Minnesota Vikings signed tailback Adrian Peterson to a seven-year, $96 million contract extension.

However, that was then.

Peterson may have seen as much of that coin as he's going to. The last two NFL drafts have featured a grand total of zero running backs taken in the first round. And now yet another former high draft pick finds himself looking for work among a glut of aging ball-carriers.

As ESPN tweeted via SportsCenter, the Detroit Lions have bid adieu to running back Reggie Bush, drafted second overall in 2006, after two seasons in the Motor City:

The move didn't come as any sort of shock. Bush is 29 years old and had a cap figure of over $5 million in 2015. That's a lot to pay for a running back who only carried the ball 76 times in 2014, and Michael Rothstein of ESPN.com reports that Bush's release saves the team $1.7 million against the salary cap.

With Joique Bell and Theo Riddick waiting in the wings, it was an easy decision to make.

Bush's release also further muddies a class of free-agent running backs that was already as murky as the Mississippi:

Rank	Player	2014 Team	Age
1.	DeMarco Murray	DAL	27
2.	C.J. Spiller	BUF	27
3.	Ryan Mathews	SD	27
4.	Mark Ingram	NO	25
5.	Justin Forsett	BAL	29
6.	Frank Gore	SF	31
7.	Shane Vereen	NE	25
8.	Stevan Ridley	NE	26
9.	Roy Helu	WAS	26
10.	Reggie Bush	DET	29
11.	Ahmad Bradshaw	IND	28
12.	Darren McFadden	OAK	27
13.	Knowshon Moreno	MIA	27
14.	Ray Rice	BAL	28
15.	Ben Tate	CLE/MIN	26
16.	DeAngelo Williams	CAR	31
17.	Chris Johnson	NYJ	29
18.	Antone Smith	ATL	29
19.	Jacquizz Rodgers	ATL	25
20.	Bilal Powell	NYJ	26

According to Evan Silva of Rotoworld, Bush checks in at the bottom of the top 10 of what at first glance appears to be a very deep class of free agents at the position.

Here's the thing: For just about every name on that list, there's at least one glaring question.

It starts at the top with DeMarco Murray of the Dallas Cowboys. Yes, Murray paced the National Football League with 1,845 yards on the ground last year. Murray also led the NFL with 392 regular-season carries in 2014.

Rob Carr/Getty Images

The history of running backs who have topped 370 carries in a season is not promising.

Mark Ingram of the New Orleans Saints and Justin Forsett of the Baltimore Ravens are each coming off career years. But Ingram has missed time in three of his four seasons and has still never topped 1,000 yards in a year. Forsett is 29, an age when many backs start to decline, and his 1,266-yard season in 2014 was far and away the best of his career.

C.J. Spiller and Ryan Mathews can't stay healthy. Frank Gore and DeAngelo Williams are well on the wrong side of 30. Roy Helu and Shane Vereen have never been more than complementary backs. Ray Rice and Chris Johnson haven't played at a Pro Bowl level in years.

And so on and so forth.

But wait, oh ye despairing agents of running backs far and wide—it gets worse!

The list of teams in the market for a free-agent running back isn't nearly as long as the list of backs available. And of those teams looking to add a ball-carrier, many are looking for a change-of-pace back or depth at the position—not a lead back.

It's evident in the sort of tweets we've seen regarding teams that could have interest in Bush:

And of the clubs looking for a lead back, many will seek to address that need in a deep backfield class in the 2015 NFL draft.

In fact, Detroit general manager Martin Mayhew told Dave Birkett of the Detroit Free Press that he thinks this is the year the first-round drought at running back ends:

"

I think that's going to change this year. I think you're going to see at least one tailback go in the first round. I think what you have to see (to take one that early) is a game-changer. And I think that there's some guys like that in this draft.

"

That's great for the young running back (likely Georgia's Todd Gurley or Wisconsin's Melvin Gordon), but it only serves to further devalue this year's free agents at the position. And that's the word that best defines this year's free-agent running backs: devalued.

The position itself has become devalued as late-round rookies like Alfred Morris of the Washington Redskins and low-cost free agents like Forsett have regularly come from nowhere to post big numbers in recent years.

Backs are devalued individually, either by age, injury or workload history—or a combination of the three. The free agents at running back are devalued because NFL teams know full well that a deep crop of rookie ball-carriers will be entering the NFL soon enough.

It's the sort of perfect storm that would send stockbrokers jumping out windows if we were talking about Wall Street. And it's going to make for a very unhappy group of veteran running backs when free agency kicks off in a couple of weeks.

Gary Davenport is an NFL Analyst at Bleacher Report and a member of the Fantasy Sports Writers Association and the Pro Football Writers of America. You can follow Gary on Twitter @IDPManor.