The NFL’s collective bargaining agreement is nine years old and, it’s badly broken. The rookie salary cap is so low that some teams build their entire personnel strategy around the short windows when they have a quarterback at that bargain price. No one outside of the top ten picks each year makes any real money on their rookie contract; they have to stay healthy and productive for four or five years to get paid on their extension.
For running backs, it’s even worse. Their careers are so short that teams are considered foolish to extend even star RBs, If they get franchise tagged, their pay is the fourth-lowest in football, barely ahead of safeties and less than half what quarterbacks make.