Miles Sanders’ new contract with the Carolina Panthers, a four-year, $25.4 million pact, holds the sixth-most total value at the running back position—and even he thinks he and his peers are underpaid.
The fifth-year veteran joined Wednesday’s edition of The Rich Eisen Show, where the contentious topic of running backs and greenbacks popped up. Sanders told Eisen that the lack of a prosperous market is not the fault of the rushers themselves, but the fault of a flawed perception.
“We’re doing everything that we have to do as far as on the field and stuff like that,” he said. “For people and GMs or owners to think that running backs are not as valued as much is a lie because you’ve got to see how everything plays out. You’ve got to see what guys like Christian McCaffrey, the stuff he does, things that Saquon Barkley do, the things that Josh Jacobs do consistently each year.”
Barkley and Jacobs have been the center of the conversation this offseason. Both players—despite carrying considerable workloads en route to career-high numbers in 2022—were hit with the franchise tag, and not the long-term deals they feel they’ve earned.
Sanders continued.
“You want to franchise tag and create a certain market for running backs just because you have this way of thinking that they only last three or four years. I think it’s B.S., honestly,” he added. “Almost every running back is underpaid right now. I don’t know what it’s gonna take. That’s a topic that needs to be brought up a little more because it sucks to be a running back right now, honestly.”
The highest-paid running back at the moment, at least on an annual basis, is former Panthers star Christian McCaffrey. The do-it-all runner brings in an average of just over $16 million per year, nearly half of what the league’s highest-paid wide receiver (Tyreek Hill) makes.
