An RB needs to get their money when they can because they can hit a wall at any time. Zeke accounts for a large percentage of our offense and the workload is mounting on him. An injury or injuries are going to start popping up with him sooner or later. Once the injuries start coming he’s not getting a big pay day. Emmitt got paid because he was productive and he stayed healthy. Emmitt signed his rookie deal in 1990 and received his new deal in 1993.
All of this is true KJJ but here's the thing. Zeke is going to continue to carry this kind of load, regardless of who he plays for. What I mean by this is if we limited his carries, in an attempt to try and save his career, he'd be pissed off and eventually either force an increased role in the offense or force a trade to a team that would increase that. Zeke, IMO, wants the carries because he wants to chase records. But see, the team knows this and so does Zeke. Now this is where it becomes interesting to me. Lets say the team is more interested in saving Zeke to make his career last. Lets say that they would like to see him play for 10 years or so, how do you do that and keep him? I mean, the only real way to justify the type of contract that Zeke wants is to keep him around and productive. RB is not that kind of position. It's short lived by nature and that's just the truth and interestingly enough, it's a truth on both sides of this issue. Those in support of a record contract use that for reason to justify him breaking his contract and holding out. Those who never want to see that kind of contract awarded use it as reason why you don't get into big money, long term deals with RBs because they won't live to the end of it and you end up with large amounts of dead cap.
So if you know all this, then how do you even start to comply with Zeke's demands even if you want to. I mean, there is no way to win this kind of thing. The team is not wrong here, IMO. Zeke wants to get paid big money that will probably end up killing whatever team pays him, to do what he is going to do anyway. He wants his cake and he wants to eat it too. I mean, I don't blame him for that. Heck, who doesn't want that but you can't really blame the team for trying to do the smart thing either.
I would not do it but I'm not making the decision.