With all of the negative energy being hurtled into the ethos over giving running backs second contracts in 2019, specifically the Dallas Cowboys and Ezekiel Elliott, one would think the position is not only short on value but short on talent. Some of the most brilliant brains in football analytics have done the research and concluded the position’s use no longer matches what is most efficient in the league anymore and thus, paying a back for typical workloads in a waste of money.

It is completely true that the usual use for running backs, to run through the line on first and 10 and hope to gain four yards, and in the Cowboys case to maddeningly run on second and long is misguided. That doesn’t mean backs have no value, especially ones as talented as Ezekiel Elliott, it just means their coordinators are using them incorrectly. However some have latched on to the tediously tended to studies and attached nonsensical conclusions. One that reared it’s head recently is that there aren’t any teams who have been rewarded for signing star RBs to second contracts.

The landscape of the NFL has certainly changed over the last 10 seasons, but this is an incorrect assessment. There are many backs who have lived up to the promise of second deals, providing their teams with positive returns on investment during the first three seasons of a new deal, where most of the guaranteed money has always laid.

Here’s a look at six second-contract runners who land in the pro category for the Cowboys giving Elliott a shiny new deal.

Philadelphia Eagles – LeSean McCoy, 2012

McCoy was signed to a five-year, $45 million extension that season. In 2019 cap dollars, the deal equates to over $14 million a year. Over the first three years of that extension, McCoy played in 44 of 48 possible contests, and averaged over 1,600 yards from scrimmage and seven touchdowns a season. His peak season was the second year of the deal, 2013, when he led the NFL in rushing attempts, rushing yards, yards from scrimmage and total touches.

He was an All-Pro that year. Although he was traded to Buffalo in 2015 due to the Chip Kelly purge, he was a Pro Bowler from 2013 through 2017, beyond the length of that Eagles extension.

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