- NFL. Tony Pollard's franchise tag delights Cowboys fans and experts, avoiding Ezekiel Elliott repeat
- NFL. Jimmy Garoppolo on the road to recovery, hopes to start the season at 100 percent with Raiders
Monday was deadline day for the NFL's franchise-tagged players to reach new agreements with their teams on long-term contracts. It was a tough day for tagged running backs like Saquon Barkley and Josh Jacobs -- two elite rushers who could not agree on extensions and are now slated to hit free agency next year.
Jacobs was the NFL's leading rusher in 2022, and in a sign of how depressed the running back market has become, the former Alabama standout still could not land a multi-year extension to stay with the Las Vegas Raiders. Jacobs' predicament drew the attention of OJ Simpson, who took to social media to defend the running back and demand better pay for the league's top rushers.
OJ: Jacobs "earned the right" to sign a huge contract
Although he has received much more attention in recent years for his off-field exploits (some of which have been criminal), Simpson is a legendary running back and prolific poster on Twitter. In a four-minute video published Tuesday, Simpson defended Jacobs as one of the NFL's premier rushers and wondered aloud why he wasn unable to sign a contract in the range of $16 million per year -- which is the salary of San Francisco 49ers runnnig back Christian McCaffrey.
"These guys are studs that play hard," Simpson said. "You got receivers making twice as much as these running backs and a lot of these running backs are catching just as many es as the receivers."
Simpson wasn't done there. He went on to express concern that Jacobs and Barkley were being severely undervalued by their teams after running the hard yards and putting up career-best numbers in 2022. Barkley posted a 1,300-yard campaign in helping New York return to the NFL playoffs, while Jacobs' 1,653 yards were almost as many yards as he accrued in his previous two seasons (1,937) combined.
"I don't know what the Raiders and what the Giants have already offered these guys," he said. "But if it's not, at least in that category, that $15-16 million at a minimum average contract. It's wrong."
Negotiations went until the end
Jacobs has been regarded as a prime holdout candidate, as he did not want to play on the $10 million franchise tag. His disappointment is likely to have grown in the past 24 hours, as it's been revealed that the 25-year-old came agonizingly close to agreeing on an extension with the Raiders.
The Raiders' playoff chances in the strong AFC West division will plummet if they cannot count on their star runner -- who already feels undervalued and unappreciated. It remains to be seen if a resolution can be reached before the 2023 season kicks off in September.