Expert Analysis
2/12/25
9 min read
Saquon Barkley’s Record-Setting Season & the NFL’s Running Back Pay Gap
In a record-setting season, it appeared at first blush that Saquon Barkley didn't make a significant impact in Super Bowl LIX.
After a 2,005-yard rushing season to lead the league, the NFL Offensive Player of the Year had three 100-plus-yard rushing games and five touchdowns this postseason leading up to Super Sunday. But the Chiefs were determined to contain Barkley and held him to 57 rushing yards on 25 carries for a season-low 2.3 yards per carry. He added six catches for 40 yards but didn't reach the end zone in a season with 20 combined touchdowns.
On closer look, the Chiefs' preoccupation with stopping Barkley's running set up the offense and Jalen Hurts for success. Kansas City defensive coordinator Steve Spagnuolo often had seven or eight of his defenders in the box, leading to Eagles offensive coordinator Kellen Moore calling many play-action passes that enabled quarterback Jalen Hurts to have an MVP performance with 221 passing yards and two TD passes (along with 72 rushing yards and one TD) in Philadelphia's 40-22 triumph.
"We knew the focus would be on the run game, and we took advantage of it in the passing game," Barkley said. "Jalen came out, played big, and it took a team effort."
One of those play actions involving Barkley was the 46-yard bomb to DeVonta Smith that put the Eagles up 34-0 in the third quarter.
Barkley also showed his value as the league's best all-around back by picking up the blitz several times, including on Jahan Dotson's 27-yard catch to the Chiefs' 1-yard line to set up the opening TD on a Hurts' Tush Push (with Barkley one of the pushers).
The 28-year-old crown jewel of 2024 free agency showcased his dual-purpose ability with a 22-yard juggling reception to the Chiefs' 4-yard line, which led to a field goal for a 27-0 lead.
Barkley's tremendous 2024 regular season followed by a highly productive postseason once again puts the spotlight on the relatively low pay for top running backs compared to the best wide receivers and other non-quarterback positions such as elite pass rushers, defensive tackles, cornerbacks and offensive tackles. This has been a growing issue in recent years.
He's the league's ninth 2,000-yard rusher, and seven of the other eight never won a playoff game (only Terrell Davis did with the Broncos). However, Barkley was a huge part of four playoff wins this year. Including the playoffs, he just set new NFL records for most rushing yards in a season (2,504) and most combined yards rushing and receiving in a season (2,857).
Barkley is finishing the first year of a super-bargain three-year, $37.75 million contract ($12.6 million per year with cap hits of $3.8 million in 2024 and $6.86 million in 2025 plus approximately $1.5 million in incentives he earned this season that will increase his 2025 base salary via an escalator and bump up his cap number accordingly. If he hits all his incentives and escalators in the three-year deal, he can earn a total of about $47 million.
10 years ago, the top-paid running back (Adrian Peterson at $14.4 million per year) was making $1.8 million per year less than the top-paid wide receiver (Calvin Johnson at $16.2 million per year). Now Christian McCaffrey's new money on his 2024 extension as the league's highest-paid running back ($19 million per year) is about half of Justin Jefferson's $35 million per year new money extension signed last June that will likely soon be topped by Ja'Marr Chase.
Barkley is one of the league's best players at any position. He was a top-five MVP candidate this season for an award that almost always goes to a quarterback (Josh Allen in 2024).
It's absurd that Barkley is making a little over half of DeVonta Smith's $25 million per year and about 44% of A.J. Brown's $32 million per year as Philly's starting wide receiver. Barkley had $26 million guaranteed in his current deal, compared to $84 million for Brown.
Barkley and Hurts are the Eagles most important and valuable players. Hurts is well compensated at $51 million per year but Barkley ranked No. 10 on the Eagles pay scale in 2024 behind Hurts, Brown, Smith, LT Jordan Mailata, LG Landon Dickerson, RT Lane Johnson, TE Dallas Goedert, CB Darius Slay, and Edge Bryce Huff (who was a healthy inactive for the Super Bowl in favor of Brandon Graham).
Philadelphia has one of the league's best offensive lines but it's hard to believe three of Barkley's blockers are making significantly more than him (all are over $20 million per year).
Consider the yards and touchdowns produced in the 2024 regular season and postseason combined by the Eagles' offensive skill position players (besides Hurts): Barkley-2,857 yards, 20 TDs; Brown-1,242 yards, 9 TDs; Smith-1,024 yards, 9 touchdowns; Goedert-724 yards, 3 touchdowns.
Even Chase's 1,740 total yards as the top wide receiver in the 2024 regular season falls far short of Barkley's 2,283 total yards.
Will it change in the near future so elite backs such as Barkley can be paid their true value and approach or reach equal footing with the best and highest-paid wide receivers and other non-quarterbacks such as 49ers DE Nick Bosa (at $34 million per year that the Cowboys' Micah Parsons may soon exceed)?
I see the gap getting a bit closer in the coming years due to the importance of a player like Barkley but it's a steep hill for the backs to climb so they'll probably never reach that same level of pay unless it's another younger, Hall of Fame caliber player. It's doubtful Barkley will be the one to jump into the $25-30 million stratosphere as he'll be 30 years old when his current deal is up in March of 2027.
There's a league bias against paying big money to backs when they hit 30. Five-time Pro Bowler and four-time All-Pro Derrick Henry is the latest star at the position to get hammered at the negotiating table.
The Tennessee Titans allowed their second-leading career rusher to hit free agency last March when he had just turned 30 and was coming off his third straight thousand-yard rushing season (with 12 TDs in an offense that had a shaky offensive line and lousy passing game). King Henry wound up taking a pay cut from his $12.5 million per year Titans contract to sign with the Baltimore Ravens for only $8 million per year on a two-year deal.
Henry proceeded to have a terrific 2024 season. He earned Second-team All-Pro honors behind Barkley after rushing for 1,921 yards (second to Barkley) with a league-leading 16 rushing TDs.
Receiving ability is a major factor for GMs as they consider running back salaries. Henry has never been a great receiving back (19 receptions for 193 yards last season). But Barkley is an exceptional dual-threat back. He had 91 catches in his rookie season and 46 receptions for 353 yards and two TDs including playoffs this past season.
McCaffrey is one of the best-receiving backs of all time. In his best season of 2019 in Carolina, he had 116 receptions for 1,005 yards and four TDs, along with 1,387 rushing yards and 15 rushing TDs. More recently, to set up his recent extension, he had 67 catches for 564 yards and seven TDs on top of 1,459 rushing yards with 14 TDs on the ground as he earned Offensive Player of the Year honors in 2023. And then the injury bug again struck the often-hurt McCaffrey who played in only four games last season due to Achilles and knee injuries.
McCaffrey's downfall in 2024 doesn't help the cause of running backs when the biggest concern among NFL GMs and coaches about older backs is the wear and tear they take over a career as part of a general injury concern at a position where players are hit hard on virtually every snap as a runner, receiver or blocker.
Henry played in every game for the Ravens and has been a mostly durable back other than in the 2021 season when he missed nine games with a broken bone in his foot.
If McCaffrey couldn't reach $20 million per year after his phenomenal 2023 season and Henry couldn't even get to eight figures per year in his Ravens deal, how is Barkley going to be the back who jumps closer to the wide receivers when the 2018 second-overall pick of the New York Giants has his own checkered injury history?
As strong as he appears at 6-foot, 232 pounds, Barkley has still missed 25 games over his seven-year career, including a 2020 torn ACL that ended his season in Week 2 and three games missed in 2023 with an ankle injury. He did play in every game in the just-completed season except when he was rested in the regular season finale (costing him a shot at Eric Dickerson's regular season rushing record).
If any running back is going to break through the undervalued recent history for running backs, it's almost certainly going to have to be a younger back who has stayed healthy in his career. That back will have to either avoid the franchise tag (that hit Barkley and Josh Jacobs coming off Pro Bowl seasons in 2022), be extended long-term before or after being tagged, or somehow hit the open market as the Giants mistakenly let Barkley do last offseason (and it had to be excruciating for the Giants' brass to see their former star rush for 176 yards and one TD in a 28-3 Eagles win at New York's MetLife Stadium in Week 7).
The top candidates among younger backs are a pair of 2023 first-round picks who are Pro Bowlers and dual-threats in the run-and-pass game in the mode of McCaffrey and Barkley. They are the Detroit Lions' Jahmyr Gibbs (1,517 rushing yards, 58 receptions for 587 yards, 22 combined TDs in the 2024 season including the playoff loss; two games missed with a hamstring injury in his rookie season of 2023 and no games missed in 2024) and the Atlanta Falcons' Bijan Robinson (1,456 rushing yards, 61 receptions for 431 yards, 15 combined TDs in 2024 and no games missed over his first two seasons).
Gibbs and Robinson have another year before they are extension-eligible in 2026. With their teams having the fifth-year option available and the franchise tag after Year 5, it's going to be hard for either player to get a lucrative extension or reach free agency where they have the best chance to receive a deal that resets the market close to the wide receivers.
Perhaps there is a phenom who will someday break this barrier, but it's going to be difficult with how far the running backs have fallen behind due to a systemic problem that a superstar like Barkley knows all too well.
