Nick Chubb: 'Nothing We Can Do' On Depressed RB Market
Transcript
00:00 (upbeat music)
00:03 - Nick Chubb was basically saying like everybody else,
00:05 there's not really too much we can do.
00:07 And there was a tweet that came out from Pro Football Talk
00:09 with their suggestion was,
00:10 no running backs participate next year
00:12 in the off season program,
00:14 which NFL GMs would go, okay,
00:16 well, we'll just throw the football all over the place.
00:18 But we know in the NFL,
00:19 here's why people say like always,
00:21 you gotta stick together, you gotta sell out,
00:23 you know, you gotta take one for the team.
00:25 NFL players lifespans, Joe, are so short.
00:28 They can't be like baseball,
00:29 they go, hey, I broke into 21.
00:31 I could play to them 35 as a DH
00:33 or a first baseman or an outfielder.
00:35 You can't do that in the NFL.
00:36 One season throwing it away is basically 25%
00:40 of a really good NFL player's career of being four years.
00:43 You can't afford to do it.
00:45 Now, granted, there will be running backs
00:47 are always gonna be needed, we understand that.
00:49 But getting back to, hey, Joe,
00:51 let's start the game, double tight end sets
00:53 and give Nick Chubb 37 carries a game
00:55 and we'll pay him accordingly.
00:56 That doesn't work anymore in the NFL.
00:58 The evolution of the game will be,
01:00 hey, if I'm a high school running back,
01:02 I wanna make some money.
01:03 No, when I go to college, I'm gonna be a wide receiver.
01:06 I'm going to be a defensive back.
01:08 I'm gonna turn into a linebacker.
01:09 That's what's going to happen here.
01:11 But it's interesting to me to see the woe is me attitude,
01:13 not from the running backs themselves,
01:15 but a lot of people in the media going like,
01:16 yeah, we have to take care of the situation.
01:18 In what market are NFL GMs gonna,
01:20 you know what, this isn't fair.
01:22 Quarterbacks, can we ask you to take a significant pay cut
01:26 so we can just have a separate salary cap
01:28 for the running back position?
01:29 Did anybody do this Joe Ranieri for fullbacks?
01:32 What happened to fullbacks?
01:33 Every team had multiple fullbacks.
01:35 Now you're lucky to find three teams in the NFL
01:38 feels like with a fullback.
01:39 - Well, I get the idea of that.
01:45 You're certainly stronger together
01:49 than you are individually, right?
01:50 I mean, I think that's fair, right?
01:52 So, you know, Eckler understands that, you know,
01:55 collectively as a group, we have more power
01:59 if we remain unified in sticking together
02:02 and being like, this is ridiculous.
02:04 Maybe just maybe we can get
02:06 some better compensation out of it,
02:08 but they're gonna need, they need the help of the players.
02:10 There's a lot of things that they need to happen,
02:14 but the idea, and I think Nick Chubb nailed it,
02:17 and I'm so glad to see somebody at the Voice of Reason
02:21 going, listen, we're stuck.
02:23 You know, this is not, this is not really,
02:26 this wasn't created by us, this group here.
02:28 This happened, you know, almost a decade ago,
02:31 this was beginning to happen.
02:33 It needed to be addressed then, not now,
02:36 because quite honestly, there's not a whole heck of a lot
02:40 that can be done, but, you know, Christian McAfee, outlier,
02:44 you know, Derrick Henry, you know,
02:47 the argument made Chubb means more to Cleveland than,
02:50 I don't know, Amari Cooper or, you know, Pick,
02:54 but some of these guys that were on this call, like, yeesh.
02:58 Listen, if really, if you went away tomorrow,
03:01 do you think, you know,
03:02 what's their wins above replacement, Donnie?
03:05 Like, what is Austin Eckler's win?
03:06 Like, be quiet, like sit down, go away.
03:10 Christian McAfee is one thing, Derrick Henry, one thing.
03:13 The rest of those guys, you know,
03:17 I don't know what to tell you.
03:19 Getting a new skill, unless they can figure out
03:21 a new skill collectively, I'm not quite sure
03:23 how they're going to make any more money.
03:25 (upbeat music)
03:27 [MUSIC]