Bijan Robinson’s record-setting extension on Tuesday did more than reward one of the league’s most dynamic backs. It pushed the running back market into a new place, and it raises a bigger question the NFL has spent years trying to answer: are teams finally starting to value the position again?
The short answer is that the numbers are moving. According to Spotrac, there were at least eight running backs who accounted for 4 percent of their team’s salary cap in average annual value from 2011 through 2023.
That dipped to five in 2024 and seven in 2025. But this season, that total is projected to climb back into double digits for the first time since 2021.
Robinson is part of the surge, along with Breece Hall of the New York Jets and De’Von Achane of the Miami Dolphins, both of whom signed extensions this offseason. The list also includes Kenneth Walker, who signed as a free agent with the Kansas City Chiefs, and Jeremiyah Love, a high draft pick of the Arizona Cardinals. Jahmyr Gibbs’ looming extension with the Detroit Lions would only add to that number.
For a position that spent much of the last decade sliding backward financially, that’s a notable shift. The 2023 offseason was the clearest sign of how far things had fallen.
The Dallas Cowboys released Ezekiel Elliott even though he had four years left on the extension he signed in 2019 after a long holdout. Dallas then franchise-tagged Tony Pollard, Elliott’s backup.
Around the league, the Las Vegas Raiders franchise-tagged Josh Jacobs after his rushing title season, the New York Giants tagged Saquon Barkley after letting him finish out his rookie deal, and Jonathan Taylor entered 2023 wanting a new contract before the final year of his rookie agreement.
That year became a snapshot of the position’s frustration. Pollard played out the season in Dallas and then left in free agency.
Jacobs and the Raiders settled on a one-year deal instead of the tag, then parted ways after his season was shortened by injury. Barkley played on the franchise tag and also walked in free agency.
Taylor and the Colts eventually agreed to an extension in early October after he sat out the first four games, but the deal averaged $14 million per season - not enough to reset anything.
Taylor’s contract landed below Christian McCaffrey’s $16 million average annual value from 2020 and even below Elliott’s $15 million AAV from his 2019 Cowboys deal. That’s the backdrop Robinson just changed.
The running backs themselves have been talking about this squeeze for a while. During the 2023 offseason, a group of active backs got on a Zoom call to discuss the market.
“The biggest thing is that we’re the only position that our production hurts us the most,” running back Nick Chubb said at the time. “If we go out there and run for 2,000 yards with so many carries, the next year they’re going to say you’re probably worn down.
That’s the biggest thing that I took from it. It’s tough.
It hurts us just to go out there and do good. It hurts us at the end of the day.”
The market did not collapse overnight, but it clearly lost ground through the 2010s. Just before the 2011 season, the Tennessee Titans gave Chris Johnson an extension with a $13.5 million AAV, and a few days later the Minnesota Vikings answered with Adrian Peterson at $14.2 million. It took nearly seven years for that bar to be topped, when the Los Angeles Rams gave Todd Gurley a deal that edged Peterson’s number at $14.375 million.
Even that comparison needs context. The NFL salary cap was a little over $120 million in 2011 and had risen to more than $177 million by 2018. Peterson’s deal represented 12 percent of the Vikings’ cap; Gurley’s was just over 8 percent of the Rams’ cap.
There were also the years of stalemate and leverage games. Le’Veon Bell was franchise-tagged by the Pittsburgh Steelers in 2017 and again in 2018. He held out the second time, missed the entire season, and signed with the Jets the following offseason.
Christian McCaffrey has done more than anyone to move the market since entering the league in 2017. His 2020 extension with the Panthers set a new running back high at $16 million AAV.
Four years later, McCaffrey raised his own standard with the San Francisco 49ers, landing $19 million AAV and resetting the position by $5 million. That remains the biggest jump in NFL history at running back.
Then came Saquon Barkley’s extension with the Philadelphia Eagles in 2025 at $20.6 million AAV, and now Robinson has pushed the ceiling again to $22.25 million. If Gibbs follows with the Lions, the top of the market could keep climbing.
The broader answer to why this is happening is more complicated. The backs getting paid now are not just runners; they are offensive weapons who matter in both phases of the game.
Robinson, Barkley and McCaffrey fit that mold. Defensive systems are changing, too, and offenses are getting better at squeezing every last bit of value out of a talented back.
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