TMQ: The running backs union is loving the NFL playoffs!

Plus so long, Sports Illustrated

The guild of NFL running backs is a happy group. In recent years shunned by the free agent market, running backs have been ruling the NFL postseason.

Chiefs-Dolphins, Bills-Steelers and Ravens-Texans were all cold-weather games won by the team that could pound the ball on the ground.

The Packers’ late-season hot streak coincided with tailback Aaron Jones rushing for at least 100 yards in five consecutive games.

When Detroit used the 12^th choice of the 2023 draft on tailback Jahmyr Gibbs, sports pundits mocked the Lions for overvaluing the running back position. They weren’t laughing when Gibbs’s 31-yard touchdown run iced the Lions-Bucs playoff contest.

Kansas City at Buffalo seemed more like a 1960s game than modern pass-wacky football. There were 328 total yards rushing: more than 300 total rushing yards has been rare for a generation in the NFL. Kansas City put the game on ice by power-running straight ahead to drill the clock at the end.

The offseason running back market is going to rise. Agents, get your outrageous demands ready!

“Show me your running back pay bump!”

In media news, Sports Illustrated is in danger of going out of business, having suspended publication and laid off all editorial staff.

Babette March, cover girl for the first swimsuit issue, 1964.

The mag produced some outstanding journalism and had a good run. Along with Inside Sports (1979-1998), Sports Illustrated convinced readers sportswriting could be thoughtful, not merely formulaic. Today everyone believes that, while the Web puts video-motion images all around us. Still photography – the Illustrated part of Sports Illustrated – no longer possesses special appeal.

It cannot be overlooked that the nosedive for Sports Illustrated accelerated in 2019 when the mag’s annual photography project, the swimsuit issue, went woke, featuring very embonpoint women both on the cover and the inside spreads.

Female buyers would not pay for a magazine of obese men in swimming trunks.