courtesy of: NFL.com
Two years ago, just a few short weeks into the 2013 NFL season, I was shocked when my phone alerted me to the fact that “rising star” Trent Richardson had been traded from the Browns to the Colts for a first round pick. Trades don’t happen that often in today’s NFL, especially during the season, so this was news for sure. But what made it so surprising was that Richardson, coming off a strong rookie season in which he carried the ball over 260 times, seemed poised to be the next great workhorse back for a team that desperately needed one. So what were the Browns thinking? Was this just a case of the Browns doing Browns things?
With the magic of hindsight, we can see how our opinions on this trade have changed, maybe more than once, over the past season and a half. In the moment, it seemed ridiculous. It was Lorne Michaels jettisoning Will Ferrell after his first season on SNL. It was Dr. Dre giving up on Eminem after “My Name Is”. It seemed a massive blunder that the Browns would soon come to regret. Well, by the end of the 2013 season, that massive blunder had lost the starting gig in Indy to Donald Brown and the deal didn’t look so bad. Of course what the Browns subsequently did with their additional first round draft pick in the 2014 draft is a topic for another column; but the point is, the Browns (believe it or not) were on to something.
This week’s news that the Eagles are trading long-time starting running back LeSean McCoy to the Buffalo Bills for young linebacker Kiko Alonso cemented what many of us already knew to be true; the era of the stud #1 running back is at its end.
As The Sports Column’s resident fantasy football expert, I tend to react to NFL news initially from a fantasy perspective, and then from the real life angle. The McCoy deal looks interesting from both. First, the assumption is that McCoy will assume the starting role when the 2015 season begins. This means that veteran Fred Jackson and the untapped talent that is CJ Spiller will either be looking for new homes or competing for a complimentary role. What remains to be seen however is exactly how McCoy will be utilized. Will he take on the workhorse role, carrying the ball 300+ times for the Bills, or will the load be split more evenly between Shady and the rest of the gang?
The main takeaway from this deal however, is that the Eagles were willing to part with their star running back for a talented, but somewhat unproven, linebacker coming off a torn ACL. What the Eagles told the world with this trade is something that those of us in the fantasy football world already knew; they don’t need a true #1 running back to succeed. And more specifically from a real world perspective, they certainly don’t need a running back set to count almost $12 million against the cap to succeed. All over the NFL, we’ve steadily seen the decline of the workhorse running back for years now.
Teams have become less and less afraid of cutting loose a proven stalwart and adopting a RBBC (running back by committee) approach. In 2014, only four running backs carried the ball over 270 times. In 2013, that number was nine. Go back to 2010 and their were 11 running backs that fit the bill. In a league that has tailored its game to the air more than the ground in recent years, it is easy to understand why teams would choose to spend their money elsewhere. The days of LaDanian Tomlinson and Shaun Alexander rushing for 25+ TDs is long gone. Today’s NFL, much like Major League Baseball, has become much more specialized.
Teams have situational players now; an early down back, a passing down back, a goal line back. The team may compile 400 carries over the course of a season, but those carries tend to be split up three or four ways with a leading rusher garnering just over 200 carries. Since 2011 when LeSean McCoy took over the role of #1 running back (and not counting 2012 when he only played 12 games due to injury), the Eagles have the run the ball over 450 times each year. Additionally, McCoy has received over 270 of those carries each year. Philadelphia had become one of only a handful of teams still employing a workhorse back, and while it had generally worked for them during that time, the combination of a changing philosophy and a cap-heavy contract made the juice no longer worth the squeeze.
In a couple of years we will once again be able to utilize hindsight to evaluate how this trade worked out for both teams. Will Alonzo turn into the dominate linebacker he showed glimpses of during his rookie season? Will McCoy become simply another cog in a Buffalo running machine or will be continue his dominance in the rushing and receiving game? These questions will eventually be answered; but the simple fact that we are asking them speaks volumes to the state of running backs in the NFL today.
