Last night time’s Zoom assembly amongst numerous veteran working backs, coordinated by Chargers working again Austin Ekeler, in the end went nowhere. Largely as a result of there’s nowhere to go.

The Collective Bargaining Agreement is what it’s. The guidelines are the foundations. And the present guidelines make it more durable for one of the best working backs to receives a commission greater than they at present obtain.

One main downside flows from the truth that the NFL Players Association can’t simply change the foundations as to working backs. Any effort to get the NFL to make it simpler for working backs to receives a commission will possible make it more durable for others to receives a commission.

Per a number of sources, the problem of holding in by way of the embellishment/exaggeration/fabrications of accidents (prompt earlier this week in an interview by NFLPA president JC Tretter) was raised throughout Saturday night time’s name. As one supply put it, the consensus was that this could’t work for working backs, because it feeds into the narrative that they’re liable to damage. (It additionally offers gamers decrease on the depth chart an opportunity to show that, greenback for greenback, they signify a greater worth than the “injured” gamers they’re changing.)

Much of the main target ultimately went to brokers, despite the fact that brokers have been excluded from the decision. There was concern raised, we’re instructed, about some brokers creating false expectations for different working backs by dumping phony salaries into the again finish of contracts. (For instance, Alvin Kamara has a final-year compensation package deal of $25 million, which pushed the typical artificially to $15 million. There’s no approach he’ll get $25 million within the final yr of his present deal.)

The subsequent step, we’re instructed, shall be for the brokers of this coalition of involved working backs to get on a name of their very own, within the hopes of developing with higher traces of communication and technique for working backs who’re or shall be searching for new contracts. The aim is to get the brokers, who’re inherently in competitors, to collaborate.

There’s vital potential worth to this strategy. Teams can’t collude relating to negotiating methods; gamers and brokers can.

Still, there are few potential world options. Ideas into consideration embody a league-wide fund that pays working backs for efficiency, shortening the working again runway for a second contract from three years to 2, and/or reconfiguring the franchise-tag components, in order that the quantity for working backs shall be increased. Each of those would require the NFLPA to barter with the league, nevertheless, and to make concessions that possible will affect gamers at different positions.

One potential swap, for instance, can be to change the franchise-tag calculation for working backs and, in return, cut up the offensive line franchise tag into three classes — sort out, guard, heart. That would profit groups that draw back from tagging inside offensive linemen, since sort out cash determines the tag. It additionally would make it a lot more durable for inside offensive linemen to get to the open market, since with decrease tags groups can be extra more likely to prohibit them.

That continues to be the basic downside with this whole scenario. Every potential approach to assist working backs hurts gamers at one other place, making it more durable for the NFLPA to steadiness everybody’s pursuits.

It’s why, above all else, these working backs ought to rigorously discover breaking away from the union and establishing their very own bargaining unit. Along the best way, there’s one essential gesture through which they may have interaction — they’ll make it clear proper now that none of them will take part within the voluntary portion of the 2024 offseason program. In flip, they’ll commit themselves to making sure over the following eight months that each one different working backs (together with these in faculty this yr) will respect the unofficial picket line, leaving the 32 groups with not a single working again for OTAs.

Now that’s the way you create leverage for a big-picture answer. Not by individually pretending to be damage, however by collectively banding collectively in a really actual effort to deprive all 32 groups of getting working backs obtainable for a single offseason apply, aside from the three-day necessary minicamp.