Stephen Dubner

Here again is Brian Burke, the ESPN analyst.

I think when most people watch football, they see the quarterback hand the ball to the running back who, when a play succeeds, he gets through the line and then keeps running and gains a bunch of yards and finally gets tackled.

And they think, oh, my God, that running back is so talented.

Explain what's actually happening to make that run a success.

And then the people executing those blocks, let's just talk about the offensive line.

There's one running back who carries the ball, who succeeds.

But then there are five or six other guys who are probably averaging, what, around 290 pounds on the offensive line?

Oh, gosh, probably more now.

Yeah.

Some football fans really do pay attention to offensive linemen, but really it's mostly their moms.

Yeah.

But there are a lot of them that are necessary for it to work.

So what does that mean about the market?

Coming up after the break, do running backs have any chance of returning to their previous glory?

This is Freakonomics Radio, and we will come back right after this.

Most of us don't respond well when something is taken away from us.

Psychologists like to talk about loss aversion, the fact that we feel more pain from loss than we feel pleasure from a gain of the same size.

Well, imagine being an athlete who's been working hard since age five or six, driven by the very slim hope that you might live out your dream and become an NFL running back, only to succeed and discover that your position has been downgraded.

An elite running back in the NFL can still make millions of dollars, but keep in mind that A, running back careers are short, and B, many of your teammates will be making more millions than you.

So what are your options?