If NFL fans have heard it once, they’ve heard it a 1,000 times: “Don’t pay running backs!”
You know the reasons — they don’t always age gracefully; teams can find cheap replacements in the NFL Draft — and you’ve been warned by the cautionary tales (Todd Gurley and Ezekiel Elliott).
And yet, we’re on the precipice of not one, but perhaps two running backs preparing to upend the market. The new deals the Atlanta Falcons and Detroit Lions are about to hand Bijan Robinson and Jahmyr Gibbs, respectively, are likely to surpass Saquon Barkley’s as the most lucrative on a per-year basis in NFL history.
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But should Atlanta and Detroit be eager to hand out such deals?
Let’s set the stage by starting with the record Robinson and Gibbs are angling to break. Barkley reset the top of the running back market in March 2025 by signing a two-year extension with the Philadelphia Eagles at $20.6 million per year. That average annual value (AAV) of that deal pushed him just ahead of San Francisco 49ers star Christian McCaffrey ($19.6 million).
However, even though we’ve seen a couple of high-profile running back extensions since then, neither the Miami Dolphins’ De’Von Achane ($16 million) nor the New York Jets’ Breece Hall ($14.5 million) surpassed Barkley — or McCaffrey — in average annual value, even as the cap has risen. Even highly coveted free agent and Super Bowl MVP Kenneth Walker III only landed $14.35 million per year from the Kansas City Chiefs on the open market.
So, will Robinson and Gibbs reset the market, or will they fall in line behind Barkley like the others from this offseason?
The answer is somewhat surprising, as my model projects only Robinson to “beat” Barkley.
To generate the figures in the table for Robinson and Gibbs, I used my NFL Projection Model, which assigns a value to every player in the league. I combined it with historical contracts to project their salaries. The model employs a plethora of metrics, as well as age and, of course, the position itself, to project what a player will make if he signed a contract extension today.
It should come as little surprise that the model sees Robinson as the league’s top running back after an electric 2025 season, which saw him tally a league-high 2,298 scrimmage yards with incredible efficiency both on the ground and through the air. Given that Robinson only turned 24 in January, it makes sense he would become the new king of running back contracts with a market-setting four-year, $87.6 million deal, putting him at almost $22 million per year.
The model didn’t love Gibbs quite as much, as he graded out as the No. 4 back after a slightly “down” season, at least by his elite standards. Even in a so-called down season, he still racked up more than 1,800 scrimmage yards and scored 18 total touchdowns to back up his elite 2024 campaign.
Even though Gibbs also just turned 24 in March, my projection has his new deal coming in at four years and $79.6 million, putting him at $19.9 million per year, below both Robinson and Barkley.
Now, will Gibbs get more money than my model projects? Probably. But should he? And, for that matter, should the Falcons be willing to be the team that makes Robinson the highest-paid running back in NFL history?
Not to spoil the ending here, but I think you’ll find that these things are close to a historical coin toss. Some lucrative running back extensions end well. Others, not so much. So, whether or not you should root for your team to hand their star running back a huge new contract probably speaks more about your risk appetite.
Let’s get into that risk a bit.
As we mentioned at the top, the running back position has historically not aged well, and second contracts have often ended poorly, especially for players who took on heavy workloads early in their careers. That last caveat is important because the success stories — Barkley and Derrick Henry — aren’t what they seem. Neither player had the workload that Robinson (1,003 touches) and Gibbs (916 touches) have had in their first three seasons (including playoffs).
Barkley had 646 — a torn ACL in Year 3 limited his workload — while Henry only had 580. Henry went on to prove he could handle a massive workload, but he feels like an historical outlier rather than someone teams should use as proof that big-money running back deals are a good idea. Because often, they are not.
You don’t have to go very far back in NFL history to see the aforementioned Elliott and Gurley deals going bad before the end of their terms. Elliott had tallied 1,078 touches before signing his market-setting deal ahead of Year 4. He produced one more excellent season but then became a shell of himself and was cut before the deal expired.
Gurley, an MVP runner-up in 2017, signed his lucrative extension with the Los Angeles Rams after touching the ball 932 times in his first three seasons. He, too, had one more good season in him, but was released just two years after signing his new deal.
However, as we said, there are success stories, too. Two recent standouts are Jonathan Taylor and McCaffrey.
Taylor tallied 883 touches with the Indianapolis Colts before signing a three-year, $42 million deal that ended a holdout in his fourth season. While Taylor has battled injuries, he’s mostly held up and produced back-to-back Pro Bowl seasons in 2024 and 2025, the first two of his extension.
As for McCaffrey, he was in a similar position to Robinson and Gibbs (938 touches) after his third season in the league. He was a running back at the top of the market and has remained one of the league’s best for many years. However, his situation does come with an asterisk or two.
First, McCaffrey signed his extension (four years, $64 million) with the Carolina Panthers before the 2020 season and played just 10 games over the next two seasons, so the Panthers didn’t exactly get much bang for their buck. He then suited up for the Panthers in six games in 2022 before they shipped him off to San Francisco. There’s no doubt he’s been exceptional during his time there, but he’s also dealt with significant durability issues.
So, given what we know about what the contracts might look like and some historical context, what should the Falcons and Lions do with their star backs?
The verdict
I’m rarely a fan of extending running backs but can be talked into it if the guaranteed money works out. The issue, for me, is that it will still be quite some time until their money starts to kick in — both had their fifth-year options picked up and will be on those rookie contracts through 2027 — and, as we’ve seen, 1,000 touches in three years tends to catch up to these guys quickly.
Will they still be the same type of game-breaking players after another 600-700 touches? And that’s where the new guaranteed money comes in.
If we assume the duo will make around $20 million per year, it’s safe to say $40-$50 million of the contract will be guaranteed, including the 2028 season. That also means a significant portion of the guaranteed money will hit the cap in 2028 and likely some in 2029.
See where this is going? Are we certain they are going to be the same players as they were three to four years earlier? That’s a lot of projection for a position that doesn’t always fare well in the long term.
I don’t have the stomach for that much risk, not after seeing what happened to players like Elliott and Gurley. Perhaps Robinson and Gibbs will age like Henry, Taylor or McCaffrey and end up being worth $20 million per year right now, but history tells us that’s not the best bet to make.