After an unsteady start to his first season as the Dallas Cowboys’ unquestioned lead running back, Tony Pollard has come on in the last two weeks to make significant contributions in limited carries, and even hit the end zone twice after having gone eight straight weeks without a score. Pollard followed up 61 yards rushing on 12 carries against Carolina in Week 11 with 79 yards rushing on 13 carries in Week 12 against the Commanders.
That gives him an impressive 5.6 yards per carry in the last two weeks for Mike McCarthy’s offense, considerably better than the 3.9 yards he had been averaging in the first 10 weeks of the year.
Still, with Pollard and so many of his Cowboys teammates—and with his fellow running backs around the league—there is a background focus on where things go from here. That’s because Pollard will be a free agent in the offseason, and the market on free-agent running backs has all but collapsed in recent years.
“The devaluation is real (as you’ve now heard a million times), and it’s only looking worse for the upcoming NFL offseason,” as the contract-focused website Spotrac noted this week.
What’s more, analyst Mike Ginnitti is foreseeing a situation in which, “Tony Pollard hits the open market, seeking a cap adjusted version of Miles Sanders’ free agent deal (3 years, $20.5M). Green Bay, Chicago, & Buffalo are listening.”
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