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See if you can spot the problem with the way running backs are paid for their labor, based on the examples below: 

Wisconsin running back Jonathan Taylor rushed for 135 yards and two touchdowns Friday night against South Florida, giving him 622 rushes, 4,306 rushing yards and 31 touchdowns across a college career during which he has earned $0.00 in salary.

Meanwhile, Chargers running back Melvin Gordon III, who rushed 631 times for 4,915 yards and 45 touchdowns at Wisconsin before entering the NFL, is still holding out for a new contract. Chargers general manager Tom Telesco stated Sunday that the team will no longer negotiate with Gordon until the end of the season, so Gordon must decide whether to take his $5.6 million base salary or leave it. 

Clemson running back Travis Etienne rushed for 205 yards and three touchdowns in a typical Clemson jolly-stomping of Georgia Tech on Thursday. Etienne rushed 204 times for 1,658 yards and 24 touchdowns for the national champions last year, earning $0.00 for grueling months of high-value work.

Meanwhile, Cowboys running back Ezekiel Elliott, who once helped Ohio State win a national championship, has been holding out for months for a contract extension. Depending on who is reporting and what time of day it is, the two sides are either moments from a deal or facing yet another stumbling block.

NFL teams financially squeeze Gordon, Elliott and other running backs because the wear and tear of hundreds of carries puts them at high risk for injuries or general decline by the time they reach their mid-20s. Meanwhile, running backs spend their early 20s incurring that wear and tear in exchange for scholarships, rah-rah glory and the right to enter a professional football league that will declare them over the hill at an age when they should be cashing in.

This is a problem with an obvious solution: let college players enter the NFL draft earlier.

Running backs like Taylor and Etienne, with little left to prove at the NCAA level, should have the choice of getting paid now instead of being forced to wait until next year. Players like Gordon and Elliott deserved the opportunity to start making money as soon as they could and the chance to approach their second NFL contracts (the first ones they can freely negotiate) younger and fresher. 

The current draft-eligibility requirement, collectively bargained by the NFL and NFLPA, requires players to be out of high school for three years and to have used up their college eligibility before entering the draft. It's a rule with some merit—imagine a "tanking" team full of 19-year-old undrafted free agents getting dangerously pummeled every Sunday—but if it disappeared or was modified to be more like the NBA's rule (players must be one year removed from high school before entering the draft pool), running backs would both be the first players to benefit and the players who benefit the most.

Elliott, for example, still would have been a high first-round pick if he entered the NFL immediately after rushing for 1,878 yards for a BCS championship team in 2014. If he then held out for an extension after three NFL seasons, it would be at age 23 instead of 24, with 289 fewer carries—his college workload in 2015—on his odometer. The Cowboys, knowing a younger, fresher Elliott could earn a lot on the free-agent market, likely would be forced to be more generous with an extension.  

Gordon's hypothetical scenario is similar. If he left for the NFL after rushing for 1,609 yards for the 2013 Badgers instead of devoting 343 more carries to a Heisman chase in 2014, he would emerge after four NFL seasons as a 25-year-old with far fewer age and mileage concerns. The Chargers might still pinch pennies (because that's what they do), but other teams would line up with sign-and-trade offers for a productive rusher with several good seasons ahead of him. 

Leonard Fournette may be the best example of all. He easily could have been drafted at age 19 after his 1,034-yard freshman season at LSU if the rules permitted it. After he tallied 1,953 rushing yards and 22 touchdowns in 2015, there's no question he would have been a high pick. But he had to stay in school one more year, played through a sprained ankle, and we may not have seen the 2015 version of Fournette ever since. Even if Fournette has the comeback season he seeks this year, he will be in the same boat as Elliott and Gordon when it comes time for his next contract. 

Some of these backs might not have been drafted quite as high if they left school earlier, and someone like Elliott might not immediately lead the league in rushing if he left school earlier. That would simply make running backs like players at every other position: getting paid to learn on the job early in their careers, then hitting the market closer to their peak. Proven veteran running backs might even be more desirable than 20-year-olds, creating the same youth-versus-experience equilibrium that exists at other positions.  

Right now, the running back pay structure is completely misaligned. Many backs enter their athletic peak while chasing Heisman glory and college credit, max out during an affordable rookie deal and hit the market just after their warranties expire. Teams like the Cowboys and Chargers are merely doing good business by lowballing them.

The only way for top running backs to earn more money is to add productive seasons to their careers. The only real way to do that is to give them the option of making money for the productive seasons they currently leave in college.

Todd GurleyMark J. Terrill/Associated Press

Players at other positions would benefit from loosening the draft-eligibility requirements as well, of course. But most quarterbacks would still wait three or four years to enter the NFL. Quarterbacks spend their final college seasons developing; running backs spend them deteriorating.

Players at other positions might turn pro early here and there, but running backs are the ones who become pro-ready the earliest. Anyone who watched Fournette as a freshman knew he was ready to help an NFL team. So was Todd Gurley II, the current poster child for the "washed-up" 25-year old. So is Jonathan Taylor. 

And yes, there would be 19-year-olds giving up on college to wash out of NFL camps and other tragic situations. Nearly 1,200 players lost NFL jobs over Labor Day weekend, and only some of them picked up teaching certificates or accounting degrees to fall back on while risking injury in pursuit of an NFL dream. The current system isn't exactly great shakes, either.

Preliminary talks (and lots of preliminary posturing) are already underway for the next collective bargaining agreement. Opening the NFL to 18- or 19-year-olds does not appear to be on the lengthy agenda for either side. It's the sort of thing that neither management (restricting entry helps management in a variety of ways) or the union (restricting entry keeps current members from having to compete with teenagers for their jobs) is going to push for.

Long story short: This simple solution isn't going to happen. 

But letting players enter the NFL earlier would earn running backs a lot more money. It would also be much more fair than forcing them to wait.

Running backs shouldn't work themselves down to the nub to entertain us on Saturdays, only to later have it held against them when they ask for more money on Sundays. 

Mike Tanier covers the NFL for Bleacher Report. Follow him on Twitter: @MikeTanier.