With Falcons running back Bijan Robinson getting a new contract that pushes the new-money APY at the position from $20.6 million to $22.25 million, Lions running back Jahmyr Gibbs has acquired an important data point for his own talks.
Will Gibbs try to match Robinson’s number? Will Gibbs try to beat it? Will Gibbs try to blow it away?
It’s no coincidence that the initial reporting on the Robinson deal spoke not in terms of the new-money APY of $22.25 million but the maximum value of $25 million per year. Given the overall skillsets and impacts of Robinson and Gibbs, both should have been trying to get to at least $25 million per year in new-money APY.
Robinson will get there only if he hits the targets for the various incentives and/or escalators. Gibbs still has a chance to get there with his base APY.
And when it comes to the new-money APY — a sort-of fugazi way to value contracts but the accepted norm used throughout the league (except when it leads to ridiculous results) — the old money becomes a factor. Remember, there are no true extensions. Robinson’s new three-year deal wonn’t get stapled onto the end of his two remaining years. He’ll have a brand-new five-year deal, which folds the existing cash from 2026 and 2027 into 2028, 2029, and 2030.
Robinson was due to make $3.744 million in 2026 and $11.323 million in 2027. That’s a total of $15.067 million in “old money.” Gibbs is due to make $3.183 million in 2026 (he was drafted four spots lower than Robinson) and $14.293 million in 2027 (he earned a higher fifth-year option based on his performances in 2023, 2024, and 2025). That’s a total of $17.476 million in “old money.”
Robinson’s lower old-money total makes it easier to get a higher new-money average on his five-year deal. If Gibbs merely matches Robinson’s new-money APY, Gibbs will need to make $2.409 million more than Robinson over the next five years.
In other words, if Gibbs signs the exact same five-year deal that Robinson will sign, Robinson will have the higher new-money APY, which means he’ll be regarded as making more than Gibbs. At a minimum, Gibbs will want (and should try to get) at least $2.409 million more over the next five years than Robinson will receive.
That nuance won’t matter if Gibbs and his agents hold the rope for a real $25 million per year APY. That would require a five-year, $92.476 million contract for Gibbs.
Putting it in those terms, is a five-year deal that pays out an average of $18.49 million per year from signing a good deal for the Lions? Hell yes.
Flipping it back to Robinson, the combination of the old money and the new money results in a five-year, $81.817 million base deal. At $16.36 million per year over the next five years for arguably the best player in all of football, that’s a great deal for the Falcons.
It underscores the fact that the best running backs in the NFL aren’t getting their fair share. Robinson opted to accept a new-money APY bump of $1.65 million over the prior record. That doesn’t mean Gibbs will do the same thing.
If he takes that position, he’ll be more than justified in doing so. Because if Gibbs were available to any team right now, they’d be lining up around the block to give him a five-year, $92.476 million contract.
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