There was a time when the running back was the face on the cereal box, the star on the poster hanging above a kid’s bed and the player every defense feared most.
Walter Payton danced through traffic.
Earl Campbell ran as if tacklers were speed bumps.
Barry Sanders made physics seem optional.
From Emmitt Smith to LaDainian Tomlinson to Adrian Peterson, the position once sat near the very center of the football universe.
That is what made the final whistle of Day 2 of the 2026 NFL Draft feel so significant, even if most people never noticed.
History had quietly been rewritten in Pittsburgh on the first two days of the 2026 NFL Draft.
Rounds 1-3 Hid the Truth
Only three running backs were selected in the first 100 picks: Jeremiyah Love, Jadarian Price and Kaelon Black. That is the fewest running backs drafted through the first three rounds since the 1970 AFL-NFL Merger.
Think about that.
Over more than five decades, through every evolution of the sport, from three-yards-and-a-cloud-of-dust football to today’s spread formations and quarterback-driven offenses, the position that once carried franchises has steadily been pushed to the margins.
The decline did not happen overnight. It happened one draft at a time.
Teams learned they could find productive runners later. Salary caps changed how clubs allocated money. Passing games exploded. Analytics emphasized efficiency over nostalgia.
And so, the crown jewel of offensive football became, in many cases, a Day 3 afterthought.
Older fans remember when backs were the heartbeat of Sundays. Younger fans have grown up in a world where quarterbacks cash the biggest checks and wide receivers dominate highlight reels.
The numbers tell the story better than any opinion ever could.
In 2026, the running back did not disappear.
It simply reached its lowest point in modern draft history, between rounds one, two and three.
