Saquon Barkley Gets a Raise from the Eagles (Which Has Me Thinking About the Running Back Market) ...Middle East

On the heels of one of the greatest seasons by a running back in league history, the Philadelphia Eagles are rewarding Saquon Barkley with a contract extension. According to ESPN’s Adam Schefter, Barkley’s extension is for two years and $41.2 million, making him the league’s first $20 million-plus per-year running back.

First, the Eagles deserve credit for recognizing Barkley’s contributions to their Super Bowl victory this season with a nice raise. Second, and more importantly, it seems we’ve come a long way in the last year regarding the running back market. Ironically, Barkley’s impending free agency when he was still with the New York Giants a couple of years ago sparked the downturn in running back value across the league.

You’ll remember when Joe Schoen and the Giants decided to franchise tag Barkley following the 2022 NFL season after deciding to extend Daniel Jones instead of Barkley. As we all saw on the offseason version of Hard Knocks last year, Schoen saw such little value in Barkley, and more specifically his position, that he decided not only not to use the franchise designation on him again, but to low-ball him with an extension off that was easily topped by the three-year, $37.75 million deal he received from the Eagles on the first day of the legal tampering period.

Barkley’s deal with the Eagles last March paid him an average of $12.5 million, which ranked third in the NFL behind Christian McCaffrey and Jonathan Taylor. McCaffrey—who’s a unicorn when healthy—Taylor, Barkley, Alvin Kamara, and Josh Jacobs are the only running backs in the league with an AAV north of $10 million. Barkley and Jacobs got their paydays last March after being written off as not valuable enough by their previous teams.

In his first season with the Eagles, Barkley carried the ball 345 times for 2,005 yards and 13 touchdowns. He also caught 33 passes for 278 yards and two more scores. Barkley’s 2,000-yard rushing season earned him NFL Offensive Player of the Year honors and a First-Team All-Pro selection. He was instrumental in helping the Eagles capture their second Super Bowl title in franchise history.

Jacobs also earned his payday in Green Bay, rushing for 1,329 yards—his second-best single-season mark—and 15 career-high touchdowns on 301 carries. Barkley and Jacobs were the case studies, per se, in the conversation surrounding the value of elite running backs around the league. They were undervalued by their previous teams and then discarded. They both signed lucrative deals in free agency and turned in career years for their new teams. Barkley got a raise, and, in turn, Jacobs is probably in line for one, too.

This begs the question, for me anyway, whether this changes how top-end running back talent will be valued in the NFL.

Will Saquon Barkley’s extension affect how teams value top-end running back talent in the NFL Draft?

As Luis wrote earlier, the Chicago Bears were set to meet with Boise State running back Ashton Jeanty at the NFL Scouting Combine in Indianapolis and reportedly will host him for a top-30 visit ahead of the NFL Draft in April. Jeanty is the cream of the crop in this year’s running back class after rushing for 2,601 yards and 29 touchdowns for Boise State in 2024. If not for the wildly impressive two-way dominance of Colorado standout Travis Hunter, Jeanty would have won the Heisman Trophy.

Jeanty himself acknowledged that the positional value of running backs in the NFL makes it anything but a slam dunk that he’s taken in the top 10 picks in the first round of next month’s draft, despite being a top-five player in terms of talent without any positional value tied to the assessment.

I think the conversation about whether or not Jeanty is a fit for the Bears at No. 10 starts with what they do to address their interior offensive line and defensive line before the draft. Still, it’s worth asking: Do Barkley and Jacobs’ deals and Barkley’s extension signal an uptick in positional value that would make Chicago, or another team, taking Jeanty with a top-10 pick make more sense?

If we’ve reached a point where the league’s top running back is going to be making $20 million per season, does it now make sense to land a running back with that potential in the draft and secure his services at a cost-controlled rate of a rookie deal with a fifth-year option attached to it, more than it was in recent seasons?

I think so, especially if Chicago has plans to effectively address their more pressing needs between now and the draft.

Speaking of those needs, Bears GM Ryan Poles swung a trade today to add Jonah Jackson, who, given his experience with Ben Johnson and his hefty cap number, is likely the starting left guard for the Bears next season. That leaves Chicago with needs at center and right guard when free agency opens next week, making it more plausible that they could be at a place where they could swing for the fences with Jeanty at No. 10 next month.

Again, I’m in wait-and-see mode for now regarding whether it’s the right move for the Chicago Bears, but I think Saquon Barkley’s extension today signals an uptick in positional value for running backs. This makes the idea of a cost-controlled Ashton Jeanty a very valuable use of that No. 10 pick if Ryan Poles and company choose to go that route.

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