Paying running backs a lot of money maybe foolish for the reasons listed, but I'm still a fan of drafting RB's in the early rounds of the draft. Running backs are one of the positions that tends to produce immediately if they'll produce at all. With most positions in football the first year or two of that dirt cheap 4 or 5 year rookie deal is spent learning on the bench.

The running game vs passing game analysis is a bit of a false dichotomy. Having the ability to run and run well opens up a lot of opportunities passing.