Famous actors and actresses on the picket line have dominated Hollywood headlines in recent weeks after the Screen Actors Guild (SAG-AFTRA) joined the Writers Guild of America (WGA) in a workers’ strike.
Their cause is simple: fair compensation for their work, including residuals (or royalties) for content that is more streamed online than when it was first released.
It’s not apples to apples, but what the WGA and SAG-AFTRA are fighting over is similar to the problem running backs face in the NFL. Saquon Barkley, Josh Jacobs and Tony Pollard are just the most recent examples of players who haven’t had the ability to fight for higher salaries throughout their careers and are therefore at the mercy of a depressed market.
But while the actors and writers have a clear path to solving their problem, NFL running backs and the NFL Players Association don’t.
There have been a lot of ideas about how to solve the NFL running backs’ compensation problem. Some have suggested the creation of a money supply reserved for players who outperform their contract. Others have claimed the modifying or removing the franchise label. Another radical idea is to make running backs ineligible for the NFL Draft and immediate free agents.
All of these options are hypothetical and moot, however, and not even possible until collective bargaining begins in about seven years, with the new collective bargaining agreement set to expire at the end of the 2030 season. In the meantime, NFLPA President JC Tretter mentioned players could fake injuriesbut even that is a slippery slope.
There’s really only one option that can create change during the year and hopefully see Barkley, Jacobs, Pollard and others win bigger deals: running backs will have to refrain from playing games the same way actors and writers have refused to work on TV shows and movies.
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That’s what Le’Veon Bell did for the entire 2018 season and what Melvin Gordon did for 64 days in 2019. Neither got the money they wanted, however, and both have since regretted their decisions. Barkley even mentioned the possibility of not appearing in games before the end of the overtime deadline, but noted that “everyone knows me, knows that’s not something I want to do.”
But this is, unfortunately, the best way to try and attempt to fix the problem.
“I don’t think anything gets done until the players are made aware of all the issues and are properly represented in collective bargaining negotiations,” 18-year-old NFL agent Blake Baratz told Yahoo Sports. “And ultimately, I don’t think anything gets done until the players are ready not to step onto the pitch.”
More than one or two guys should also skip games. As Bell tweeted on Wednesday, the running back contract situation is akin to the 1998 Disney animated film, “A Bug’s Life,” where a colony of ants gather to fend off oppressive grasshoppers (bear with us, here) who demand some of their resources in exchange for letting them continue to live in peace. Like the ants in the movie, NFL players vastly outnumber NFL owners, and so a united front could create change in the league.
A full union strike happened once in the NFL in 1987, but another seems unlikely. He can happen, however. And just look at Hollywood right now following their work stoppage: Production on several high-profile TV shows and movies has been halted and studio executives would expect the strike to continue for months. This means that the industry will remain at a standstill while the unions and their bosses haggle over money and power.
NFL players who sit out would take away the league’s proceeds and give them — namely, running backs — leverage at a bargaining table they so desperately don’t possess.
Why NFL Running Backs Need Leverage
The running back market has been stagnating since 2011 and has actually declined since 2020 as there is almost no way for a player to claim more money. And why? Well, there’s no reason for any team to give players a bigger contract in the current CBA. The rookie pay scale, fifth-year option for first-round picks, and franchise tag give teams up to seven years of contractual control after a player is drafted, leaving little opportunity for a player to fight for better pay.
“Your leverage is your ability to move on and get paid by someone else [in free agency]”, Baratz said. “The owners are smart. They’ve made it impossible for players to get leverage if they don’t want to pay them.
This is where, ideally, the NFLPA would step in to fix things. So it was that actors and writers banded together in a joint strike against the studios – both unions agreed to refuse to work until their demands were met.
But that didn’t happen for NFL players in the last CBA negotiations in 2020. And it’s not clear whether it will happen in 2030 either. And when moves did happen, nothing Really amended. The 2011 lockout has ended. Both Bell and Gordon returned to the league but did not get the contracts they wanted. The games continued and the NFL moved forward. And that’s because owners understand there are more players willing to stay for less than defend more.
“You can say you don’t want a franchise tag and fight for whatever you want, but what’s the reason the NFL backs down on anything?” said Baratz. “They don’t have to give in on anything because they know that half the players in the league live from blow to blow and a career year is like dog years and they don’t have the ability to do that. So they know they’re going to fold at some point.
RBs need to regroup
Solidarity quickly showed during strikes in Hollywood, as wealthy and well-known celebrities joined the lowest-paid workers on the picket lines. It’s also happened before with running backs as top players have taken to Twitter to publicize salary discrepancies. They also reportedly formed a group text chat to discuss the matter further and spoke on a Zoom call hosted by Los Angeles Chargers’ Austin Ekeler on Saturday night.
The main difference, however, is that running backs fight for players looking for the biggest contracts, while WGA and SAG-AFTRA strikes fight for everyone, but especially those who earn the least. So when actors like Jason Sudeikis and Susan Sarandon refuse to work, their presence validates the demands of their underpaid or lower-paid peers, even if they aren’t personally as affected by the results.
Running backs, meanwhile, will more than likely fight for higher salaries for high-profile players like Barkley, Jacobs and Pollard. They want to see a real open market, not a market belittled by the franchise label. It’s a noble cause, but lesser-known players may be less likely to join, if only because they’ll be fighting for something they may never have anyway.
Biggest problem facing any possible player strike
While the WGA and SAG-AFTRA strikes have literal lists of demands, there is no consistent goal for running backs yet. Part of that is up to the union, while the other part is up to individual player decisions.
The goal cannot simply be “more money”, as this idea will be manipulated into a negative narrative. Bell and Gordon were reviled for their decisions not to play. Players who ask for more money are generally considered bad guys because their motives seem selfish juxtaposed against the reality of their million-dollar paychecks.
The difference between Barkley or Jacobs making record money versus taking a market-level contract is negligible in the grand scheme of things. They’ve already earned generational wealth for their families as first-round picks, and that won’t change if they accept a four-year, $64 million deal (Christian McCaffrey’s deal) or a three-year, $36 million deal (Nick Chubb’s deal).
Good players like Pollard or Ekeler — both late round or undrafted players — would be the biggest beneficiaries here. But it’s an even smaller group.
So maybe it should be framed by “more money guaranteed”. But these types of deals usually only affect the best players. Only nine of the 73 running backs who have signed a free agent contract or contract extension in the past two years have received at least $5 million guaranteed. And there’s already an NFLPA investigation into potential owners’ collusion not to hand out fully guaranteed deals to quarterbacks, so why would they give in to that for running backs?
The real goal should be to get rid of the mechanics that tie running backs to this devalued market: the rookie pay scale, the fifth-year option for first-round picks, and the franchise tag. Eliminating at least one of these tools that teams use to control player contracts creates more leverage, which invites better deals and, possibly, more money.
Again, however, none of this can Really change for several years. But maybe a little restraint will grease the wheels of this idea, which has become a little more mainstream in recent weeks.