NFL RB Market Roasted by Fans After No New Contracts for Saquon Barkley, Josh Jacobs

It was a rough day for the running back market, to say the least.

Two of the NFL's biggest stars at the position, New York's Saquon Barkley and Las Vegas' Josh Jacobs seemingly lost their standoffs with their respective organizations after neither one of them were able to agree to a long-term deal by Monday's 4 p.m. ET.

Both players had the $10.1 million franchise tag placed on them earlier in the offseason and had been holding out of OTAs and mandatory minicamp as they continued negotiations on a multi-year contract.

And now, they are both backed into a corner with the Giants and Raiders having all the leverage in the world over them with both players reportedly sitting out of training camp as well.

Barkley and Jacobs can either sign the franchise tender before the start of the season, or they could sit out the year and miss out on those valuable game checks.

Which has been done before—looking at you Le'Veon Bell—but is still very rare to see.

Out of the six players that had the franchise tag placed on them this year, only Barkley, Jacobs and Dallas Cowboys' running bak Tony Pollard couldn't come to a long-term agreement.

Pollard did end up signing the tender, however.

This is part of the ongoing saga surrounding the running back position and its ever-lowing value. Franchises aren't looking to pay star running backs big money considering the drop off after age 30 and the amount of punishment they take at the position.

And Twitter was mind-blown that two of the NFL's best couldn't get the money they seemingly deserve.

Only time will tell when and whether Barkley and Jacobs will play next season, though neither have ruled out just sitting out and waiting to potentially hit the open market in 2024.

One thing is clear though, the days of running backs getting Christian McCaffrey-type of money, $16 million a year, is long-gone and it doesn't look like it's going to get any better in the future.