Should Miles Sanders Get a Contract Extension?

The reasoning behind giving the Eagles RB an extension as he enters the final year of his rookie deal

Miles Sanders is in the final year of his rookie contract.

It’s easy to say, “let it play out, let’s see if he can stay healthy for the first time since his rookie season, let’s see if can finally – finally – put together a 1,000-yard rushing season.”

Ah, but if he does, the price tag on a second contract will likely rise considerably, and the Eagles would risk losing him.

The Eagles can get ahead of that possibility and extend his contract in the next few months. In fact, they should.

Sanders can sometimes be frustrating to watch, with his penchant for trying to bounce outside rather than hit an inside hole that a play may require. His inability to avoid injury, too, is equally frustrating.

Since playing all 16 games as a rookie in 2019, Sanders has had a litany of injuries, from knees to ankles to a broken hand that has limited him to 12 games in each of the previous two seasons.

Missing games has cost Sanders a chance at reaching the plateau that running backs are measured by, and that is running for 1,000 yards. It is easier now after the NFL grew its season to 17 games, but Sanders still fell short, finishing last year with 754 yards.

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Still, the Eagles should give him a contract extension.

Set to enter his fourth season, Sanders will turn just 25 in May. He is in his prime.

He averaged 5.1 yards per carry and is just the ninth player in league history to collect at least 750 yards rushing with a 5.0 ypc average in consecutive seasons.

It's hard to ignore that, especially the ypc. Give him the ball often enough and Sanders will break a long run.

If Sanders were to stay healthy and put together the kind of season that was envisioned of him when the Eagles made him the 53rd overall player taken in the 2019 NFL Draft, he would likely price himself out of the Eagles' range.

Giving him a three-year deal now would likely mean probably an $18-19 million outlay. That’s about $6-7M per year.

Roll the dice and let 2022 play out, and Sanders has a big year, those numbers could swell to $12-13M per year, and it’s probably unlikely the Eagles would pay that kind of money to a running back, a position they believe they can find assets in places other than the draft.

And this isn’t the year to be looking for a running back early in the draft.

There is no Najee Harris and Travis Etienne, who went in back-to-back selections at Nos. 24 and 25 in last year’s draft, to the Steelers and Jaguars, respectively. Or a Javonte Williams, who then went 35th overall to the Broncos.

NFL Draft analyst Daniel Jeremiah has just two running backs among his top 50 prospects in the 2022 NFL Draft, and that’s Texas A&M’s Isaiah Spiller at No. 33 and Iowa State's Breese Hall at 39.

The Eagles don’t typically take a runner on the first two days of the draft, though they broke that habit with the selection of Sanders.

Last year, they grabbed Kenny Gainwell in the fifth round.

Kenny Gainwell / USA Today

Usually, though, the Eagles find their runners elsewhere.

In the 2017 Super Bowl season, they signed LeGarrette Blount as a free agent in May, traded for Jay Ajayi in October, and signed Corey Clement as an undrafted free agent when the 2017 draft ended.

Wendell Smallwood had a small role that season, and he was taken in the fifth round of the 2016 draft with Donnel Pumphrey arriving in the fourth round a year later. Prior to those two, Sanders and Gainwell, the last running back the Eagles drafted was in 2012 when they selected Bryce Brown in the seventh round, their final pick in that draft.

With 10 picks in this spring’s draft, the Eagles could spend a third-day pick on one.

Boston Scott is an unrestricted free agent and Jordan Howard is a free agent. Jason Huntley showed some nice things in a Week 8 matchup against the Dallas Cowboys, but adding another RB isn’t out of the question.

Whether they do or not, addressing the backfield by extending Sanders would be a move that gives them some backfield stability in the short term on a team-friendly deal for a player who has proven he can be effective running the ball.

Ed Kracz is the publisher of SI.com’s Fan Nation and EaglesToday. Also the co-host of the Eagles Unfiltered Podcast. Check out the latest Eagles news at www.SI.com/NFL/Eagles or www.eaglestoday.com and please follow him on Twitter: @kracze.