NFL FREE AGENCY
How NFL, Texans will value veteran running backs
Mar 7, 2024, 5:31 pm
Will the Texans pony up for Saquon Barkley? Composite Getty Image.
Derrick Henry is back in the gym, eager to prove turning 30 is just a number that shouldn’t affect the four-time Pro Bowl running back’s value on the NFL's open market.
The man who organized a group chat among the league's top running backs last summer is about to find out exactly what teams are willing to pay for proven experience.
And Henry has company with stars such as Saquon Barkley, Josh Jacobs and Tony Pollard — the three running backs hit with franchise tags in 2023 — also hitting free agency. Barkley didn't sign his tag and wound up playing last season for $10.1 million.
So will these running backs find big contracts when the NFL free agent market opens next week? Or will they have to be patient, choosy or simply have to settle for less?
“We’re all going to find out,” Texans general manager Nick Caserio said. “Free agency is just — it’s what does the market tell you? And then any player, what are you willing to pay that player commensurate with their role?”
The cost of free agents changes every March with the start of each new NFL year. Positions get slotted, and running backs have been hit the hardest with less expensive replacements available. Only kickers and punters are paid less on average by position than backs whose bodies take crunching hits every handoff and block.
No NFL team in the offseason gave itself more negotiating time with either a franchise or transition tag on a running back that would've cost a mere $9.7 million for 2024. Again, only kickers and punters had a lower value.
Of the nine total tags since the start of the offseason, seven went to defensive players.
So a group of experienced and talented players is poised to hit the free agent market.
“There’s some good names there,” Giants GM Joe Schoen said at the NFL combine last week. “I mean, it’s a little bit of a saturated market. There are some guys at different ages that have had success, there’s some older guys that have had some success. So, it’s a diverse group.”
Age isn't a factor for Jacobs at just 26. But he is coming off his worst season, having rushed for only 805 yards last season, and the Raiders also have Zamir White as they look for a possible replacement for Jacobs.
"The talent pool at that position in free agency is relatively high,” Raiders GM Tom Telesco said.
Even with the jump in the NFL salary cap for 2024, running backs may be forced to be patient and choosy.
One thing in their favor? The pool for running backs in April's draft is a bit shallow with only 12 projected as fifth-round picks or better out of 35 graded before the combine.
Incoming running backs have noticed the low value the NFL has placed on their position. Blake Corum of Michigan said it's up to running backs to fix that narrative by being game-changers.
“Running backs obviously want to get paid more, but at the end of the day it is what it is, you can only control the controllables and that's the way I look at it so I'm not so worried about it,” Corum said.
Vikings general manager Kwesi Adofo-Mensah said that just because the market price hasn't risen along with others doesn't negate the impact of good running backs.
"All it does is take one team, one deal to reset a market and change things,” Adofo-Mensah said. "I’m not going to say that it’s not going to be this year, but there’s a lot of exciting options on the market. We’ll take a look at them like we take a look at every position.”
Henry made clear after the Titans' season ended that he was looking forward to becoming a free agent, essentially for the first time since high school. He agreed to a four-year extension after being tagged in 2020.
Yes, he turned 30 in January, but the 2015 Heisman Trophy winner started only four games combined over his first two seasons in the NFL behind DeMarco Murray. Henry led the NFL in carries with 280 and was second in rushing behind the 49ers' Christian McCaffrey in 2023.
One of only eight men to run for at least 2,000 yards in a season, Henry also is tied for 13th in NFL history with 90 rushing TDs, tied with Eric Dickerson and Curtis Martin. He's also 508 yards from passing Eddie George as the franchise's career leading rusher.
Whether Henry gets that chance has been the most popular question in Tennessee for general manager Ran Carthon. He goes into his second season with a new coach in Brian Callahan and Tyjae Spears, a big dual threat out of the backfield as a rookie in 2023.
“I have a responsibility to build this team long term,” he said. "And like I said, we’ll cross that bridge with Derrick and his team when we get there.”
That time is here. The only question is at what price.
So how successful was the recently concluded Houston Texans’ season? Their record was the same 10-7 mark posted a year ago, they won a home playoff game as a year ago, and then were eliminated in the Divisional round as a year ago. Coming off three seasons in which the Texans won a total of 11 games, the 2023 campaign went down as an unquestionably tremendous success. Holding steady in 2024? Let’s go with middling success. While more than a few subscribe to the notion that if you’re not going forward you’re going backward, that’s too cut and dried to categorize the 2024 Texans.
Winning a horrible AFC South simply is not an achievement to brag on. That said, the Texans were leaps and bounds better than the horrible. It’s not very long ago that they were the horrible. The South is the only AFC division the Texans would have come close to winning, but while watered down with regard to impressiveness, it’s not as if winning it is meaningless. Eight times now in their 23 seasons of existence the Texans have won the division. Taking nothing else into consideration, that is quite good. With divisions comprised of four teams, if everything was equal over a lengthy period of time (quality of management, coaching, luck, and whatever else) pure math says each team should win its division once every four years. The Texans eight titles in 23 seasons is better than once every three years. Since the current divisional format was adopted when the Texans began playing in 2002, the Colts have won the South nine times, the Titans four times, the Jaguars just twice. The Texans have won their division crowns in pairs: 2011/2012, 2015/2016, 2018/2019, 2023/2024. They will be clear favorites to make it back-to-back-to-back division championships for the first time.
And now to the flip side of the coin. The Texans are an utter failure at achieving anything beyond winning a Wild Card round game on their home field. Eight playoff appearances, a 6-2 record all at home vs. a Wild Card, 0-6 in the Division round, hence zero spots in the AFC Championship game. The Texans have not come close to winning in any of those six defeats. Their best go of it was their first ever postseason, the 2011 season. The Texans were at Baltimore, and twice in the last three minutes of the fourth quarter took possession trailing 20-13. The first of those possessions featured consecutive T.J. Yates (!) completions to Andre Johnson that got them near midfield. Yates’s next throw was also intended for Johnson. It was a deep ball intercepted by Ed Reed (that would not be the last time Ed Reed was involved in a poor outcome for the Texans but that’s a wholly different topic). The Texans then forced a Ravens’ three and out and took over after the punt at their own 48-yard-line with 45 seconds left. Yates threw four straight incompletions and that was that. Thirteen years later the Texans have come no closer to the NFL’s semifinals. Using the same simple math that dictates a team should win its division every four years, with sixteen teams competing for two spots in the Conference Championship game, over the long haul a franchise should average an appearance once every eight years. The Texans are still sitting on zero. The Cleveland Browns (2.0 edition) are the only other AFC franchise to never get within one victory of the Super Bowl.
Other than the seven point loss to the Ravens, Saturday’s defeat in Kansas City is the only other non-double digit Texans’ playoff loss, and that was a nine point game only because the Chiefs took a safety in the final seconds. Their other six playoff losses have come by an average of 19.83 points. That drives home the fact that the Texans have yet to ever be true Super Bowl contenders.
Waiting for Patrick Mahomes, Josh Allen, and Lamar Jackson to decline isn’t much of a plan. Will C.J. Stroud evolve into a quarterback worthy of belonging in at least the same paragraph as those three, if not the same sentence? Will Nick Caserio atone for his arrogant and erroneous declaration that it was a “lazy narrative” to point to the Texans’ offensive line play as, well, offensive? Those are two of the bigger questions to which the answers will shape the Texans’ ceiling for 2025 and beyond.The nucleus of a potentially elite defense is there with Will Anderson, Danielle Hunter (for one more season at least), Derek Stingley, Kamari Lassiter, and Calen Bullock. It’s not supremely difficult to get pretty good in the NFL. Greatness is a much higher hurdle to clear. The Texans are pretty good. Pretty good may be good enough to win another cute little division championship banner. Can they deliver great?
Still three weeks to go until the doors open at spring training, but the Astros are always in season for our discussion. New Stone Cold ‘Stros podcasts drop each Monday, with intense negotiations in progress to add a Thursday episode. Click here to watch!