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Monday was the National Football League’s deadline for players who were given the franchise tag to sign long term contracts. The deadline was actually at 3:00 p.m. on Monday.

There were three running backs that received the franchise tag from their teams, and they were the only three players under the franchise tag that hadn’t agreed to a deal with their team. Well Monday’s deadline came and went without new deals for Josh Jacobs of the Las Vegas Raiders, Saquon Barkley of the New York Giants and Tony Pollard of the Dallas Cowboys.

Out of these three running backs only Pollard has actually signed his franchise tag. Now will have to wait and see if Jacobs and Barkley sign their franchise tags and play for the $10.091 million dollars next season or if they sit out.

Jacobs was the league’s leading rusher last season with 1653 yards on 340 carries which was the second most in the league. He also scored 12 touchdowns which tied him for 3rd in the league last season.

Barkley rushed for 1312 yards on 295 carries while scoring 10 touchdowns. Barkley showed last season that he was all the way back from a serious injury that cost him 14 games in 2020.

Pollard posted the first 1000-yard season of his career as he rushed for 1007 yards on 193 carries while scoring 9 touchdowns. Pollard’s 5.2 yards per carry average last season was 3rd among running backs. Don’t forget that Pollard shared backfield duties with Ezikiel Elliot last season.

Now it’s clear that these three running backs will be the feature running backs for their teams next season and you have to wonder why none of them were able to get some type of a deal done before Monday’s deadline.

We’ve all heard how running backs don’t age well and they have the shortest NFL careers out of any position, so I’m sure that’s part of the reason. Another thing you can add in is that the NFL is really a pass first league now. Remember the league made rule changes to improve the passing game and that seems to be the way teams are built now. You can also probably figure that the dual threat quarterbacks have something to do with it as well.

It’s unclear as to what Jacobs and Barkley will do, but sitting out hasn’t really helped running backs. Levon Bell was the last running back to sit out over a contract dispute and his career never really recovered when he returned.

After Bell sat out the entire 2018 season, he never rushed for 1000 yards in a season again. In the three years he played after his holdout he only scored 7 touchdowns. After his holdout Bell played for four different teams in three years before his career came to an end after the 2021 season.

Now there’s no way of knowing what kind of affect a holdout would have on the performance of Jacobs and Barkley, but there’s a chance that will find out if that’s the decision they make.

Since they were unable to come to an agreement, they only have two choices they can either play under the franchise tag and make $10.091 million dollars fort this season or they can holdout. There’s no in-between ground since under NFL rules they can no longer negotiate a long-term deal.

So, we know that Pollard will play for the Cowboys next season and with Elliot no longer with the team he should be the feature back in the Cowboys’ offense.

Now my question for you is what you see happening with Jacobs and Barkley. Do you think that either one or both of them will report to their teams and play under the franchise tag? Or do you think that one or both of them will sit out part or all of the 2023 season?

Don’t forget to look for me on Twitter, I’m @Burketime.