I am not sure what you are looking for, but here have been recent numbers for RBs . . .
Thanks for the list and I think it illustrates my point nicely. IMO the ONLY time it makes any sense to pay up for RB is if you a team in a SB window and a RB that is at the very least the team MVP and probably contending for league MVP. Of course there are other "intangibles" like having a history of health before the contract and the RB doesn't have a history of off-field problems but even then if you have a RB that is deserving of big contract he should be touching the ball so often then health concerns are almost built into the equation. This is why it makes absolutely no sense to sign a RB to big salary with the hopes of building a SB contender around him eventually. By the time you build a team around him he will have been beat up or knocked out playing the most punishing position on the field.
Todd Gurley - This would be my single example of giving a big contract payed off in that they got to a SB with Gurley being the best player on the team. The subsequent injuries and salary cap fallout are precisely why you have to be in a SB window to even consider giving even a league MVP type guy one of these deals. The Rams took their shot when it was there and I don't blame them even if they could probably could have structured the contract in a slightly more team friendly way given the position.
LeVeon Bell - Complete and utter joke that ended like a tire fire.
Jerick McKinnon - Joke and a team nearly won a SB DESPITE his silly contract not because of it.
David Johnson - If not for the patron saint of stupid trades(Bill O'Brian) this might be right up there with the last two.
Saquon Barkley - Non contender and is wasting his prime while paying the RB position so much it will be more difficult to build a SB team around him.
Christian McCaffrey - See Barkley.
Alvin Kamara - Some people will say this belongs in the Gurley category but I disagree. If you are averaging ~250 total touches a year as a "workhorse" RB I just don't think the offense really revolves around you. He may be the most talented player on that offense but I don't think the franchise lives or dies based on whether he is on the field in the same way the Rams did with Gurley or the Titans do now with Derrick Henry.
Ezekiel Elliot - The franchise does revolve around this guy but after the past year you have to wonder how much of his early success was related to the OL. Add to that they off-field stuff and this contract was probably a mistake. I absolutely think his salary is holding back the team from building a SB contender at this point and the team probably was never close enough to a SB window they should have taken this gamble in the first place.
Dalvin Cook - See McCaffrey.
Derrick Henry - This is almost a Gurley situation and I think it really boils down to whether you think the Titans are a SB team or not. Henry is absolutely the most important player on the team, an MVP candidate in my mind, but I just don't think TEN is a SB contender unless their defense makes a huge leap. This one is as close to the Gurley contract as the second one on this list that makes sense to me.
Joe Mixon - See Saquon, but add past off-field baggage. The Bengals would be better off overpaying even an average LT to keep Joe Burrow standing upright until they can build a team around Burrow. Is it more important to have a RB to take pressure off a rookie QB or a running game? Teams have been been winning SB's for awhile without needing a single pro-bowl level RB as long as they have a good enough running game.
In summary, about a third were complete laughable busts, a third were good players stuck spinning their wheels for organizations that didn't move any closer to becoming a SB contender, and lastly a third if I'm being generous were players that were given the big paycheck but never led their team over the hump. Gurley came close, but he's really the only one that even came close.
INJURY ASTERISK! - I'm sure I'll get a lot of replies that go something like, "Yeah, but more than half those guys got injuries so....." but that is precisely my point. These guys only earn these contracts because they are the team MVP but if you are a RB touching the ball that often you only have a short window where you will actually be performing up to what you are getting paid. You can throw out the anomalous Walter Payton guys if you want but they are just that. An anomaly that proves just how remarkably uncommon Walter Payton was.
@Anarchy99has been kind enough to provide a list of the top paid RB's in the past three years. I'll just add a list of the SB champions for the last 13 years...
'20 TB
'19 KC
'18 NE
'17 PHI
'16 NE
'15 den
'14 NE
'13 SEA
'12 BAL
'11 NYG
'10 GB
'09 NO
'08 PIT
If we can agree that the point of this entire exercise for NFL teams is to win a SB maybe we should look at that list and identify the highest paid RB on that list. This is a fantasy football site and I realize that to US the RB that accumulates the most statistics is relevant for OUR teams to win a championship but I'm just not sure that's how successful team building works in the NFL. So what was the highest paid RB of the last 13 years on the teams that actually won the SB?