What To Do With Saquon Barkley and Josh Jacobs
The deadline for NFL teams to sign long-term deals with players given the franchise tag designation has come and gone. Monday, July 17th at 4 PM EST was the deadline for franchise players to sign multi-year contracts. After this deadline passes, players with franchise tags are prohibited from signing long-term deals until the end of the regular season.
The Franchise Tag
Recently, we saw Jacksonville’s tight end, Evan Engram, signed an extension. However, three fantasy football studs Saquon Barkley, Josh Jacobs, and Tony Pollard didn’t receive one. It’s been a tough time for running backs to get extensions this offseason. While Pollard didn’t hesitate to sign his franchise tag, Barkley and Jacobs did. The cost for running backs on the franchise tag is $10.091 million.
While players want to get paid, what does that mean for us as fantasy players? For Pollard, he should continue to be viewed as an RB1 for the upcoming season as he signed his franchise tag. Currently, in our fantasy football rankings, we have Pollard as the consensus RB7 and is going at the end beginning of Round 2 per Fantasy Football Calculator.
As for Barkley and Jacobs, well that’s another situation. While both players had career years, both are willing to sit out now that a long-term deal didn’t come to terms. So what do we do now as fantasy managers?
For the most part, we continue to draft them. As of this writing, they are both top-6 in our consensus rankings. Now I’m sure as the days come and go they will drop. Fantasy managers will want safety at the position instead of guessing if Barkley or Jacobs will be available for Week 1.
A Running Back Who Sat Out
In turn, you may be thinking this turns into the Le’Veon Bell saga. After signing his first franchise tag in 2017, he had a career-high 321 rushing attempts and was a dominant force again in the league. Yet, once he was tagged again he refused to sign it for the 2018 season.
Why was this? Because he wanted a long-term deal with the Steelers. Similar to what Barkley didn’t like, it boiled down to the guaranteed money. Although Bell was offered a five-year, $70 million contract, he only had $10 million in guarantees. He saw this as a slap in the face, especially being a focal point in the offense.
What he did next, no one expected. Throughout training camp and into the start of the season, Bell never showed up. At the time he had until November 13 to sign his tag or miss the entire 2018 season. The day came and went and he went on to miss the season.
However, the following year Bell got his payday as he signed a four-year, 52.5 million dollar contract with $35 million guaranteed. While getting his money, he never regained his touch as he had with Pittsburgh and halfway through the 2020 season was released by the Jets. After that, he bounced around with teams and that was it for him.
The New Running Back Market
It’s clear, running backs just aren’t getting paid top dollar anymore. Currently, rookie Bijan Robinson is the highest-paid running back for the upcoming 2023 season. Holding out now hurts them financially as they can be fined $50,000 for each day of training camp missed. However, most of these fines can be waived by the team.
Fantasy Football Outlook
Overall, I don’t see Barkley or Jacobs missing the season. A game or two are not out of the question though. While both players are being drafted as RB1s, I wouldn’t be surprised if they slip to the RB2 range and start going in the late second to the early third round. Needless to say, take the discount while you can.
Dynasty Outlook
Similar to your redraft leagues, in your dynasty fantasy football leagues, take the discount. If you have Barkley or Jacobs on your rosters, your best bet is to hold and see how it all plays out. More than likely, they’ll end up playing this year, and given their current situations, they’ll both be productive players for 2023.
In dynasty leagues, winning now tends to get a bit overlooked. Many dynasty players get obsessed with rebuilding and hoping to hit on those deep sleeper players. Oftentimes, this is something that can end up hurting fantasy managers in the end. Don’t worry too much about having the best roster “on paper”. Instead, make those playoff pushes and get your name on that trophy.
For the latest free agent news, check out the Fantasy Football News Tracker.
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