I’ve tried breaking RBs down into line generated yards vs player yards before contact, yards after contact, yards on pass routes, usage, etc… and really come up with nothing. If this was 10 years ago and you had a former 1st round draft pick on his first ever contract extension coming off a 1000 yard year he was going to get paid big money. Actually probably even three years ago it would have happened though there would have been more drama involved in the signing possibly going through the franchise process. Denver had no intention of keeping Moreno and Moreno ran out of options.

Mike Anderson and Olandis Gary in Denver were problem the first two “system” guys to make people really think about things, but they were the exception to the rule and usually a team would go and sign such a player (such as Clinton Portis). Now I think if you played recently in Denver, New England, Washington, Houston, San Francisco, and Seattle you get dinged as a “system back” or “system beneficiary”. For Denver and New England that clearly carries over to receiver as well.

And from there, which I think your research points out, is that teams just have very random sets of criteria that they use to evaluate. YPC is probably one of over-reliance and its kind of scary to see the limited snap guys get credit for that. Id guess the Jaguars are looking at the low usage and decent performance in the last season as a sign that he can play well now in a role with more use. That said he should have been paid closer to Chris Ivory and Mike Goodson, but when you have cash minimums to meet you may overpay. One thing I have seen more of is that the low payroll teams have a tendency to shy away from the big money player, even if it’s a reasonable market deal, but they have no qualms about overpaying a low level player by $1-$1.5 million. Id guess Ivory and Danny Woodhead might have been a player brought up in some of these deals as examples of low cost deals that paid off and justified more investment in players like Gerhart. I also did not get the fit of Brown in SD unless they are looking to move one of their backs this offseason, which is always possible.

I think Johnson will have a hard time and I think that line of thinking was justified when he went unsigned this week after so many people said he would get a deal no later than Wednesday. There are a lot of dings on him ranging from all the things you pointed out all the way to his ability to accept a diminished role. He was incredibly unhappy when they brought in Shonn Greene because it would hurt his carries. He doesn’t shy away from blaming those around him for failure. That’s not a guy you bring into a foreign locker room without trying to knock the ego down a peg through his contract offer. My gut feeling is he comes in between Bush and Sproles at $3.75M per year, but I would not be surprised if he ends up lower if teams don’t like the act when they meet with him to discuss a deal.