In Running Backs We No Longer Trust

Ray Rice might be the league's best back, but his individual importance has diminished over the years.

The NFL, more than other leagues, is a untamed, forever changing animal that legitimately never sleeps. It seems like the game evolves every three or four years, sometimes for the better and other times for the worst. For the most part pro football has gotten softer, with more information coming out about the devastating effects of hitting 200 to 350 pound men for sixty some odd minutes (obviously). But we're not talking about this, we're talking about the players and coaches on field adaptations to the new game. Take Ray Lewis for example. The guy is at the forefront of offseason training with a new regiment every year. This year he slimmed down some 30 pounds because he believes that the game is getting faster with the quick dismissal of the fullback. And you know what? He's absolutely right. Yet the most dramatic and, in some cases, saddest league adaptation is the lack of sustainability at the running back position.

Running back may still be the most valuable offensive position in the sport, but no longer is it necessary or even a good thing to have one superstar back. Long gone are the days of one back having 400+ carries in a season, of backs just getting assaulted for entire seasons and taking entire months off just to be able to fully walk again. Born out of the ashes of the Jamal Anderson's, Shaun Alexander's and Larry Johnson's comes the two-headed monster system. College football started to adapt this system years ago, most notably with Auburn's two-back set with Callidac Williams and Ronnie Brown, and more recently with LaMichael James and Kenjon Barner. It has slowly become a staple in the NFL game and it has change the way we view running backs today.

Actually one of the most affected facets of the NFL doesn't even come on the field. Fantasy football is no longer a running-back driven game (even though Matthew Berry will still tell you so). You're probably like is fantasy that important to the league? What? Yeah, it definitely is. The emergence of fantasy football has a direct correlation to the NFL's meteoric rise in this decade. It generates interest in every game for every fan, because once your team's game is over you still have fantasy players all over the board. Sunday's are no longer just for your favorite team, it's for the league in general and that is why the alteration of the running back position has become a big issue.

The trust in superstar backs has taken a serious hit. While a guy like Ray Rice or Arian Foster is going to give you a lot of points, taking them with your first picks is way more of a risk then it used to be. This is so for two reasons. One, running backs get the most carries (now more or so split 60/40 with another back) and for that reason they're most likely to get hurt. Second, the wear and tear of running backs could transform a MVP-candidate one year to a perennial fantasy bust the next year. You can't gauge where the running back is in his high-performance lifespan. It's a lot safer now to draft your QBs first and, even as crazy as this sounds, your wide receivers. Personally I have a lot more trust in a guy like Andre Johnson or Calvin Johnson (both with sound QBs) than I do with Rice or Foster because the pounding they take is so intense that there week-to-week status is always questionable. Also, as team's offenses start to really develop and fully engage the two-back system there will most likely become a point when carries are completely split down the middle.

How about you ask yourself this question? Can you give me a definitive number one back on the Redskins, Patriots or Packers? Yeah, someone might have the most carries or be #1 on the depth chart, but it doesn't mean there putting up fantasy team carrying stats. So as funny as it sounds, we as fantasy team owners need to actually start reevaluating how we draft, start not salivating over running backs and make more conscious decisions about whether or not a star wide receiver is going to have a more consistent year than his running back counterpart.

I can tell you this right now, the quarterback position has become the most valuable position in fantasy football and if you disagree get back to looking playing Halo 3 or wearing fitted hats.