Miles Sanders vs. Eagles 'Moneyball'; Who Wins?

For the running backs who hit the open market this offseason, no one got more money than Miles Sanders, the 2022 Philadelphia Eagles Pro Bowl back who was pushed out of the nest and into the arms of running backs coach Duce Staley for a reunion with the Carolina Panthers.

Sanders put pen to paper on a four-year, $25.4 million deal to be the lead back for the Panthers and their new quarterback Bryce Young, the No. 1 overall pick in the 2023 NFL Draft.

Other running backs have been guaranteed more money through the franchise tag this offseason (think Saquon Barkley, Josh Jacobs, and Tony Pollard) but none who were truly free to find the highest bidder generated more than Sanders, who was coming off a career-high 1,269-yard season.

From the Eagles’ perspective, a $6.25M average annual value for a running back might as well have been the $21M San Francisco handed Javon Hargrave to pry the star defensive tackle away from Philadelphia.

The number was a non-starter for an organization typically ahead of the curve when it comes to roster building.

“You want to franchise tag and create a certain market for running backs just because you have this way of thinking that they only last three or four years,” Sanders said on "The Rich Eisen Show" this week.

Sanders, a Pittsburgh-area native who matriculated at Penn State, had grown roots in the Delaware Valley and didn’t want to leave. But the option to return was never going to be there after the fifth-year pro priced himself out of the clearance aisle with his 2022-23 season.

The Eagles went “Moneyball” by trading for D’Andre Swift, signing Rashaad Penny, and re-signing Boston Scott, to add to the younger pieces already under team control, most notably Kenny Gainwell and Trey Sermon.

The 2023 salary cap numbers of those potential contributors are about equal to Sanders’ AAV package in Carolina ranging from $1,774,399 for Swift followed by Penny ($1,230,000), Scott ($1,212,360), Sermon ($1,102,994), and Gainwell ($1,023,881).

That’s a grand total of $6,343,634 for an entire running back room.

If the goal is financial responsibility, the Eagles’ organization can already light up the victory cigar but that’s not the end game.

Sanders returned to the area earlier this week for a youth football camp in South Jersey and didn’t want to get into his divorce from Philadelphia, instead focusing on his reunion with Staley, a former Eagles running back himself and a long-time assistant in the organization topping out as Doug Pederson’s assistant head coach/running backs.

Staley has that same title with the Panthers where his boss is Frank Reich, Pederson’s former offensive coordinator in Philadelphia.

“He means a lot. I swear,” Sanders told the Philadelphia Inquirer when discussing Staley. “He’s probably the main reason I came [to Carolina]. I have that connection with him. I know how he coaches. I know that he’s going to be the best out of me. Most importantly, he knows what I’m about, and he’s the one that drafted me.

“We’re going to get back to what we’ve been doing.”

It’s an interesting discussion and one that will be debated throughout the 2023 season in Philadelphia.

If Sanders produces more with a less talented team around him in Carolina than the Eagles’ committee approach provides in Philadelphia this season with perhaps the best offensive line and a quarterback that makes things easier for those running the football, plenty will take notice.

“I think it’s B.S., honestly,” Sanders told Eisen when asked about the NFL’s devaluation of running backs. “Almost every running back is underpaid right now. I don’t know what it’s gonna take.

“That’s a topic that needs to be brought up a little more because it sucks to be a running back right now, honestly.”