NFL Running Backs: They Run Fast, but Don't Run Long

We probably never would have heard of Roger Staubach if he would have had his way in high school. The boy who would become the legendary Dallas Cowboy was in tears when his high school coach told Roger that he would be playing quarterback in his senior season. But even though he lined up under center, Staubach would run anyway, and his scrambling from the pocket at Navy and eventually Dallas became the indelible image of a player who would be enshrined in both the college and pro football halls of fame.

Few other running backs, at any level of the game, would be so lucky. Those who play the position subject themselves to a brutality that even the most durable bodies can only withstand for a few years.

Even at the pro level, runners’ bodies succumb to injury, wear and age. You will find no Gordie Howes or Tom Watsons in an NFL backfield. The game’s continual churning of flesh does not permit it.

That game claimed another career on Tuesday, and Steve Slaton’s was a pretty good one. He rushed for 1,282 yards as a rookie in 2008. But the following year, he fumbled seven times and went on injured reserve. And now he’s gone, released by the Texans earlier this week. Dust in the wind.

It’s stories like these that almost give us sympathy for Chris Johnson and why he wanted to get his contract renegotiated with the Titans in the offseason. An NFL player’s career is often shorter than his college career, and his value to his team diminishes with every birthday. And there is no worse negotiating table than the collapsible tray on a hospital bed.

Some running backs complain about not being used enough or, in the case of Adrian Peterson, let their parents do it for them. Peterson had only five carries in the second half of the Vikings’ overtime loss to Detroit. "I see the agony on his face," Nelson Peterson said to a local newspaper. Nelson would know a thing about agony; he served time in federal prison for money laundering.

Few running backs stand out like Johnson and Peterson do, as most teams employ two or even three players and distribute the chores of the position among them. One running back, by himself, is far less valuable than he was even ten years ago. In a recent report, the average running back’s salary trailed only safeties, tight ends, kickers and punters. They are cheaper, which is one reason teams don’t invest in one too heavily.

Another reason is the Rule of 370, a maxim established by the statheads at Football Outsiders. The rule cites the high-water mark of carries for a running back in a year before his effectiveness would face a significant dropoff the following season. Jamal Anderson, Larry Johnson and Shaun Alexander became living, breathing examples of how a tailback’s production would plummet through overuse.  

The irony of this is that the Rule Of 370 came to prominence in the age of fantasy football, as a challenge to the expected trajectory of a player’s performance year-to-year. While NFL coaches called for runs up the gut, fantasy owners called for alternatives to players that had monster workloads the previous season.

In fantasy, most teams are required to start at least two running backs, a standard that doesn’t reflect the recent shift in “committee” backfields. Not unlike NFL teams, the workhorse running back was the centerpiece of many aspiring fantasy teams, but with so few every-down backs in the league today, fantasy owners have spent those high-round picks elsewhere. One wonders if their pro counterparts will ever follow suit.

There is no running back of the future; the archetype has remained the same over the last 50 years: he must be fast and he must accept punishment, and a blessing with the former does not compensate for a deficiency of the latter. Reggie Bush, for example, was a vaunted specimen who came out of Southern Cal, and was projected by nearly everyone to be the first overall pick by the Houston Texans in the 2006 NFL Draft. Only he wasn’t.

Bush fell to the Saints at No. 2, who had no idea what to do with him. He has since signed with the Dolphins, averaging a paltry 2.6 yards per carry. Dolphins rookie Daniel Thomas, in short, has outperformed him, and one wonders if Bush will be the next victim of pro football’s personnel roulette.

As for the Texans, their No. 1 pick, North Carolina State defensive end Mario Williams, is an anchor on the team that currently leads the AFC South, despite the injury to starting running back Arian Foster. Leave it to the Texans to tell a running back what he’s truly worth.

Update: The Dolphins picked up Slaton off waivers. I'm sure Reggie is thrilled.