The long wait for the first running back to be drafted finally came to an end.
The Carolina Panthers traded up six spots to take Texas running back Jonathon Brooks with the 46th pick in the NFL draft Friday night, the second-latest selection for the first running back to go off the board.
Brooks might have gone earlier but he tore his ACL late in the season after rushing for 1,139 yards in 11 games.
The only draft that had a longer wait for a running back came in 2014. Bishop Sankey was the first one taken when he went 54th to Tennessee that year.
The only other time in the common draft era starting in 1967 when no running backs were taken in the first round came two years ago, when Breece Hall was the first taken at No. 36 by the New York Jets.
“I think for us, we value the running backs and we value the running game," Panthers general manager Dan Morgan said. "I think to have a guy like Jonathon Brooks, he was a guy we loved and identified. ... They are valuable to us because we are going to be running the ball.”
There was a belief that the first running back picked could start a run at the position with several other top backs projected to go in the second and third rounds of the draft. But it took 20 more picks before the next back was selected, with Florida State's Trey Benson going to Arizona with the second pick in the third round.
Two more backs went later in the third round as the Rams took Michigan's Blake Corum 83rd and Green Bay took Southern California's MarShawn Lloyd with the 88th pick. The backs taken so far match the low for the first three rounds in the common draft era previously hit in 2021 and 2016.
“It’s hard to think about," Benson said about the lack of running backs drafted. “I know the position is devalued but that just means we have a lot of work to do and I know this running back class will turn it around.”
Teams have been shying away from using premium picks at running back in recent years as offenses have focused more on the passing game and teams have shifted away from using bell-cow backs.
There was a brief respite last season when Atlanta drafted Bijan Robinson eighth overall and Detroit took Jahmyr Gibbs with the 12th pick — both going off the board before any wide receivers.
This year there were a record-tying seven wide receivers drafted in the first round, marking the 13th time in the past 14 drafts that more receivers went in round one than running backs, with the lone exception being 2018. That happened just once in the first 17 years of the common draft era.
But since the start of the rookie wage scale in 2011, there have been 59 receivers taken in the first round compared to 19 running backs.
Brooks believes the league is underrating the position.
“I guess the league and all of the fans will see this year,” Brooks said. “I do agree that as a running backs class, and in the NFL in general, I think a lot of people are going to start showing why we should be held to a higher standard.”
The league is coming off the first season since 1990 when no running back carried the ball at least 300 times with Derrick Henry leading the league with 280. That followed a 2023 offseason when several star running backs failed to generate lucrative long-term contracts as NFL teams dedicate their resources more to the passing game.
AP Sports Writer Steve Reed in Charlotte, North Carolina, contributed to this report
AP NFL: https://apnews.com/NFL
FILE - Texas running back Jonathon Brooks runs free before scoring a touchdown against TCU during the first half of an NCAA college football game, Saturday, Nov. 11, 2023, in Fort Worth, Texas. The Dallas Cowboys are resetting at running back eight years after drafting Ezekiel Elliott. Brooks, who is recovering from a major knee injury, is the highest-rated running back in the draft, according to nfl.com, and the only one among the top 30 prospects. (AP Photo/Julio Cortez, FIle)
BERLIN (AP) — A prominent Berlin politician was violently assaulted and suffered injuries to her head and neck, police said Wednesday, in the latest attack on elected officials that raises concern over rising political violence in Germany.
Franziska Giffey, the city's top economic official, a former mayor and an ex-federal minister, was attacked at an event in a Berlin library on Tuesday by a man who approached her from behind and hit her with a bag containing a hard device, police said.
Giffey was taken to a hospital and treated for head and neck pain, police said. A 74-year-old man was detained and police searched his home, police said. They said the suspect was known to police, but did not give any indication for a motive.
Berlin Mayor Kai Wegner strongly condemned the attack.
"Anyone who attacks politicians is attacking our democracy,” said Wegner, according to German news agency dpa. “We will not tolerate this. We will oppose all forms of violence, hatred and agitation and protect our democracy.”
Giffey wrote on Instagram that "we live in a free and democratic country in which everyone is free to express their opinion ... and yet there is a clear limit. And that is violence against people who hold a different opinion, for whatever reason, in whatever form.”
“They are a transgression of boundaries that we as a society must resolutely oppose,” she said.
Later on Wednesday, Giffey, protected by several bodyguards, told reporters at a public event in Berlin that she was feeling fine but that “we also have to make it possible for us to live in a country where those who bear social and political responsibility can move freely.”
Last week, a candidate from the party of Chancellor Olaf Scholz was beaten up in the eastern city of Dresden while campaigning for next month's election for the European Parliament and had to undergo surgery.
Police detained four suspects, aged between 17 and 18, and said that the same group had apparently attacked a Greens party worker minutes before they attacked Matthias Ecke. At least one of the teens is said to be linked to far-right groups, security officials said.
Also on Tuesday, a 47-year-old Green Party politician was attacked by two people while putting up election posters in Dresden, dpa reported.
The incidents have raised political tensions in Germany.
Both government and opposition parties say their members and supporters have faced a wave of physical and verbal attacks in recent months, and have called on police to step up protection for politicians and election rallies.
In February, the German Parliament said in a report there were a total of 2,790 attacks on elected representatives in 2023. Representatives of The Greens were disproportionally affected in 1,219 cases, those from the far-right Alternative for Germany party, or AfD, in 478 cases and representatives of the SPD in 420 cases.
The country's vice chancellor, Robert Habeck, who is a member of The Greens, was prevented from disembarking a ferry for hours by a group of angry farmers in January, and the vice president of the German Parliament, Katrin Goering-Eckardt, also from The Greens, was prevented from leaving an event in the state of Brandenburg last week when an angry crowd blocked her car.
Germany's federal interior minister, Nancy Faeser, said after a special meeting of the country's 16 state interior ministers on the issue of violence on Tuesday that possible measures included tightening Germany’s criminal law in order to "punish anti-democratic acts more severely,”
Many of the incidents have taken place in the former communist east of the country, where Scholz’s government is deeply unpopular. The Interior Ministry in the state of Saxony said it had registered 112 election-related crimes so far this year, including 30 against elected officials or representatives.
Mainstream parties have accused AfD of links to violent neo-Nazi groups and of fomenting an intimidating political climate. One of its leaders, Bjoern Hoecke, is currently on trial for using a banned Nazi slogan.
Alternative for Germany, which campaigns against immigration and European integration, is expected to make gains in the European polls as well as in elections in Saxony and two other eastern German states in the fall.
Franziska Giffey, left, Berlin's top economic official leaves with security guards an event about solar energy in Berlin, Germany, Wednesday, May 8, 2024. Giffey, the former Mayor of Berlin was violently assaulted at an event in a Berlin library and had to be treated in the hospital on Tuesday, May 7, 2024, adding to the list of the elected officials who have been exposed to brutal attacks in Germany recently. (AP Photo/Ebrahim Noroozi)
Franziska Giffey Berlin's top economic official leaves an event about solar energy in Berlin, Germany, Wednesday, May 8, 2024. Giffey, the former Mayor of Berlin was violently assaulted at an event in a Berlin library and had to be treated in the hospital on Tuesday, May 7, 2024, adding to the list of the elected officials who have been exposed to brutal attacks in Germany recently. (AP Photo/Ebrahim Noroozi)
Franziska Giffey Berlin's top economic official leaves an event about solar energy in Berlin, Germany, Wednesday, May 8, 2024. Giffey, the former Mayor of Berlin was violently assaulted at an event in a Berlin library and had to be treated in the hospital on Tuesday, May 7, 2024, adding to the list of the elected officials who have been exposed to brutal attacks in Germany recently. (AP Photo/Ebrahim Noroozi)
Franziska Giffey Berlin's top economic official speaks to media after an event about solar energy in Berlin, Germany, Wednesday, May 8, 2024. Giffey, the former Mayor of Berlin was violently assaulted at an event in a Berlin library and had to be treated in the hospital on Tuesday, May 7, 2024, adding to the list of the elected officials who have been exposed to brutal attacks in Germany recently. (AP Photo/Ebrahim Noroozi)
Franziska Giffey poses for media during an event about solar energy in Berlin, Germany, Wednesday, May 8, 2024. Giffey, the former Mayor of Berlin was violently assaulted at an event in a Berlin library and had to be treated in the hospital on Tuesday, May 7, 2024, adding to the list of the elected officials who have been exposed to brutal attacks in Germany recently. (AP Photo/Ebrahim Noroozi)
Franziska Giffey Berlin's top economic official speaks to media after an event about solar energy in Berlin, Germany, Wednesday, May 8, 2024. Giffey, the former Mayor of Berlin was violently assaulted at an event in a Berlin library and had to be treated in the hospital on Tuesday, May 7, 2024, adding to the list of the elected officials who have been exposed to brutal attacks in Germany recently. (AP Photo/Ebrahim Noroozi)
Franziska Giffey, center left, Berlin's top economic official leaves an event about solar energy in Berlin, Germany, Wednesday, May 8, 2024. Giffey, the former Mayor of Berlin was violently assaulted at an event in a Berlin library and had to be treated in the hospital on Tuesday, May 7, 2024, adding to the list of the elected officials who have been exposed to brutal attacks in Germany recently. (AP Photo/Ebrahim Noroozi)
Franziska Giffey Berlin's top economic official speaks to media after an event about solar energy in Berlin, Germany, Wednesday, May 8, 2024. Giffey, the former Mayor of Berlin was violently assaulted at an event in a Berlin library and had to be treated in the hospital on Tuesday, May 7, 2024, adding to the list of the elected officials who have been exposed to brutal attacks in Germany recently. (AP Photo/Ebrahim Noroozi)
FILE - Berlin Mayor Franziska Giffey attends a commemoration for homosexual victims of the Holocaust, in Berlin, Germany, Wednesday, Jan. 25, 2023. Giffey, the former Mayor of Berlin was violently assaulted at an event in a Berlin library and had to be treated in the hospital on Tuesday, May 7, 2024, adding to the list of the elected officials who have been exposed to brutal attacks in Germany recently. (AP Photo/Markus Schreiber, File)
