What Williams' deal tells us about RB market
Mike Florio explains why Javonte Williams' three-year deal with the Cowboys underscores the realities of the free-agent RB market, where superstars get paid, and others sign a wide range of short-term deals.
Video Transcript
Technically in 14 days, the market opens on the 9th of March, just two weeks from today.
As a practical matter, it's tampering time.
It's gonna happen in Indianapolis this week.
It's already happening.
I was talking to some people yesterday, it's already happening.
It's rampant, everybody does it.
They minimize the paper trail or the digital footprints, but people are gonna know sooner than later what else is out there for the guys who are due to become free agents.
And one guy who did a deal this weekend before Indianapolis, Cowboys running back, Javonte Williams, three years, $24 million.
Now, that's the initial report.
We'll get the full details at some point, break down the structure, what's it really worth?
He had 1,201 rushing yards last year, had his breakout season, and there's two sides of the coin.
Some people have said he could have gotten more.
The other side is, maybe he couldn't have, and if you wait around too long, you end up doing a one-year, $5 million deal and trying it all over again next year.
Yeah, right.
That, that's the risk, right?
Y- you do that, right, you l- you lose m- maybe the, the most amount of money you can make, trying to hold out for something different.
And also, you look at it for a guy like Javonte Williams, he's going, "Wait, you know, they're dangling this out there in front of me.
I hurt my knee a few years ago and was worried about if I would ever be the same."
So yeah, this gets money in his pocket and just ends the discussion, and that's where, yes, it's tough on these running backs.
There's It's, it's calculated risk when you turn down money, and where are you gonna get it somewhere else?
And we know the way teams value running backs is a little different all over the league.
It feels like it's changing.
I think it needs to change more.
That's my thought.
It needs to change more.
I mean, if you wanna change your team around in a hurry, the quickest way to do it, I talk about this with my dad all the time, is to get a real- an awesome running back.
I mean, nothing We know a franchise quarterback superstar can do it, but after that, you, you go to the next position that can change your team around in a hurry, it's a running back.
And that, to me, is where it's being devalued, and that's where I don't understand it, and that's where I think there's some good conversations with some of these guys that are out there right now.
Well, and I think the reality is this, Chris, there are two types of running backs.
There's the true superstar, Saquon Barkley, Christian McCaffrey- Right.
Derrick Henry- Right.
Jamir Gibbs, Bijan Robinson type, and then there's everyone else.
And I- I've said this many times over the years, but it's appropriate to repeat it.
When we used to go to the West Virginia games every weekend during football season, it dawned on me after two or three years of, you know, Amos Zerou, Avon Coburn, K.J.
Harris.
Every year, there's a guy coming out of the program that could play at the NFL level, and it's like every program's got a guy like that: great athlete, the guy you don't wanna mess with, like, the guy who can do it all.
Built, rocked up, muscular, can run into that traffic, doesn't think twice about it.
But there's a Like, every school's got one, and they're flooding into the NFL every year.
And this is where I think analytics, as it relates to personnel management, has become part of the problem-
