What is the value of a running back in today’s NFL?
There are a lot of people that believe that the only way to consume professional football nowadays is by measuring how well the quarterbacks perform the aerial circus.
In 2002, Emmitt Smith’s cap number was $10.3 million, which was a big number when the salary cap was $71.101 million — 14.4 percent of the cap. Fast forward to 2011 and Adrian Peterson’s $12.7 million cap hit led all running backs and was 10.5 percent of the $120.3 million salary cap.
For the upcoming 2023 season, Derrick Henry has a cap hit of $16.