Emmitt Smith says running backs have been devalued in the NFL

Emmitt Smith didn’t mince his feelings about how the running back position is viewed in today’s NFL. He hates to see the position devalued.

“Extremely disappointed,” Smith said on Tuesday as he served as the keynote speaker at The Salvation Army’s annual “Doing The Most Good” luncheon.

“I’m extremely disappointed in it because they have placed the emphasis on the quarterback position and the D-ends and maybe even cornerbacks. And the guy who takes the pressure off all of that is the running back.”

To Smith’s point, he pointed to the Denver Broncos and the Seattle Seahawks in recent years as Super Bowl-caliber teams that relied heavily on their running games.

“The running game is the stable for all of it,” Smith said. “Denver. Seattle. You just think about teams that went a long way last year. Even if [the Broncos] didn’t have a solid running game throughout the season … in the postseason, that running game was rolling. It was doing pretty good, not bad at all.”

For that matter, look no further than the 2014 Dallas Cowboys. DeMarco Murray broke Smith’s franchise record in rushing, and served as the workhorse for what became a 12-4 team that made a run in the playoffs.

Behind Murray, the Cowboys dominated the line of scrimmage and time of possession battles for most of the season. But the Cowboys didn’t make a strong play to keep Murray, who bolted in free agency for greener pastures in Philadelphia and is now with Tennessee.

Instead, like most teams, the Cowboys didn’t feel like the running back position carried the value as it did in Smith’s era. Plus, teams have shifted to a multi-back approach on offense.

It’s rare to see a running back carry the full load nowadays as Smith once did. Maybe that is a good thing in the long run for Smith, as his all-time rushing record (18,355) seems almost unbreakable in today’s game.

After all, there’s a reason no running back was drafted in the first round in the 2012 and 2013 drafts. Most running backs tend to have shorter careers and fall off faster than other positions.

“They can claim what they want to claim,” Smith said. “The bottom line is all of them [at every position] get banged up. Every last one.”

This story was originally published April 13, 2016 at 6:26 PM with the headline "Emmitt Smith says running backs have been devalued in the NFL."