Stop Panicking About Robinson and Gibbs. The NFL's Best Young Backs Are About to Get Paid, and the Fear Is Completely Misplaced

The NFL has a problem with institutional memory. Every few years, a conversation resurfaces like clockwork. A young running back emerges as a game-changer. He runs hard. He catches passes out of the backfield. He moves the chains. Then his contract year approaches, and the panic sets in. Front offices start whispering that paying running backs is foolish. Analysts spread the gospel that elite backs decline immediately after getting paid. The consensus builds like a tsunami. This time around, that tsunami is crashing on Bijan Robinson and Jahmyr Gibbs, two of the most talented players at their position in years. The panic is justified nowhere. It is rooted in mythology, not fact.

Let me be direct. The fear that second contracts doom elite running backs is one of the most overblown myths in modern football. Bijan Robinson is worth paying. Jahmyr Gibbs is worth paying. Any franchise that has either of these players and lets them walk because of age-old concerns about running back regression is making a franchise-altering mistake. I have watched enough football, studied enough history, and seen enough teams make this exact error to know exactly how this story ends. The teams that let these guys leave will regret it. The teams that pay them will not.

First, let's address the actual evidence. The narrative says elite running backs decline sharply after their second contract. The narrative is lying to you. Look at the recent history of truly elite backs who got paid. David Johnson was exceptional in 2016. He signed his extension before the 2017 season. He rushed for 885 yards and caught 80 passes in 2017. That is not a decline. It is a slight dip in volume, but the production was elite. Alvin Kamara has been paid multiple times. His overall production has remained in the top tier at the position consistently. Yes, he has had injury issues, but when he plays, he produces. Christian McCaffrey has been paid handsomely multiple times in his career. When healthy, he has remained one of the five best backs in football. We are conveniently forgetting all of this when we talk about Robinson and Gibbs.

The real issue that trips up NFL front offices is this: they cannot distinguish between correlation and causation. When a back gets paid and declines, they assume the payment caused the decline. They do not consider that the decline happened because of age, injury, volume, or offensive line changes. They do not consider that elite backs decline because every team in the league has spent five years studying their weaknesses on tape. They do not consider that the back might be playing in a different system with different supporting players. No, the narrative is simpler. The running back got paid. The running back got worse. Therefore, paying running backs makes them worse. This is the logic of someone who has never actually studied how professional athletes work.

Let's talk about what Bijan Robinson is right now. Robinson is a complete running back in an era where that matters more than it ever has. He runs between the tackles with power and vision. He catches the ball with soft hands and understands how to create after the catch. He can split wide. He can line up in the slot. He can be your emergency quarterback on trick plays if you want him to be. That is not hyperbole. Robinson was a first-round pick for a reason. The Falcons understood they were investing in a foundational piece. Now they are worried about the second contract because of ghost stories about running backs. This is foolish decision-making at the highest level.

Jahmyr Gibbs is something we do not see very often in modern football. He is a small back who plays like a big back. He is explosive and violent with the football. He makes defenders miss without wasting motion. He has the kind of instincts that you cannot teach. The Lions recognized this when they brought him in. Detroit is not a franchise known for wasting money on second contracts for running backs. It is a franchise known for making smart football decisions. If the Lions believe Gibbs is worth paying, that should matter to the conversation. The Lions do their homework. They do not get caught up in narratives.

Here is what truly elite running backs offer that the salary-cap obsessed crowd refuses to acknowledge: they create explosive plays in ways that are extraordinarily difficult to replace. You can find a running back in the draft. You can find a running back in free agency. Finding one that can take a handoff 15 yards upfield on third and short, somehow navigate through a phone booth of defenders, and come out the other side is not something you can manufacture. Finding one that can line up in the slot and beat a linebacker over the middle for a first down is not something you can scheme up with a backup. Elite production at running back requires elite talent. Bijan Robinson has that talent. Jahmyr Gibbs has that talent. Replacing them with committee approaches and third-round draft picks sounds good in a spreadsheet. It does not work in actual football.

Let's also discuss the actual financial reality. The running back market is not out of control. Robinson and Gibbs will not command Mahomes money. They will not command Burrow money. They will not even command the highest price for their position because that belongs to Josh Jacobs, and Jacobs is clearly in a different tier. A competitive contract for a truly elite running back right now sits somewhere in the 7 to 8 million per year range. That is not franchise-breaking money. That is not the kind of contract that should require an existential conversation. That is reasonable money for an elite player at a position that has less depth around the league than it has in decades.

The counterargument is always the same: running back is not a premium position. The argument is correct in principle. Running back is not a premium position like quarterback or edge rusher. But that does not mean you get to ignore the reality that elite running backs are rare and valuable within their position tier. Not every team has one. Most teams do not. Most teams would trade significant capital to acquire one. The teams that have one and let him walk will suddenly understand the gap between having elite production at the position and having average production at the position. That gap manifests itself every single Sunday.

Consider the broader context of what Robinson and Gibbs represent for their franchises. The Falcons rebuilt their roster. They brought in a young quarterback. They invested in weapons. They made Bijan Robinson a centerpiece of that rebuild. To now suddenly decide that paying him is not worth it because of theoretical concerns about his age and a narrative that is not supported by evidence is to abandon the strategy that got you to this point. The Lions made Jahmyr Gibbs a key acquisition. They did so when they were already a playoff team. They did so because they understood that elite running backs are a missing piece for contenders. To let him walk because of salary cap gymnastics is to miss the actual problem, which is that truly elite playmakers are hard to find and harder to replace.

I have watched this scenario unfold before. I have seen good teams make the mistake of penny-pinching on the second contract. They always regret it. They regret it because they underestimated how difficult it is to find truly elite players at any position. They regret it because they believed in myths instead of evidence. They regret it because they confused smart money management with actually getting the football decisions right.

The verdict is this: Pay Bijan Robinson. Pay Jahmyr Gibbs. The narrative about second contracts destroying running backs is not based in reality. It is based in fear and mythology. The teams that have these players need to understand what they have. They have rare talent. They have young backs who are already among the best in football. The fear that they will decline after getting paid is misplaced. The actual fear should be what happens when you let them walk and have to replace them with someone else. That is the mistake that will haunt franchises.