Dallas Cowboys Improve With Darren McFadden
Bottom Line
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Murray had a pretty good year in 2014 but the Cowboys didn’t lose anything special when he left. He simply stayed healthy all year but as ball carrier, he was mainly a volume runner in 2014. To put his season in perspective, Murray is one of only 16 running backs to rush for over 1,800 yards in a season.
And most of the 16 were special but the special ones did it averaging over five yards per carry. Murray, Jamaal Anderson and Rick Williams, were the three to rush for over 1,800 yards while averaging less than five yards per carry. They did it by volume, the same way any a lot of starting running backs in the NFL could have.
McFadden will be playing with a bunch of stars for the first time and won’t have the bulls eye on his back. He had his best years with Campbell, who is now a backup, Darrius Heyward-Bey, who is now a special teams guy and Jacoby Ford, was out of the league last year. So while the load was on him to open up things for the others he’s going to a team that will open up things for him.
Owner Jerry Jones was smart about this whole thing saying, “You worry about injury [with McFadden] but we were worried about injury with Murray, In eight seasons, four in Oklahoma and four with the Cowboys, Murray only had two injury-free seasons. And so the position is one you have to take into consideration no matter what the skill level is, they take a lot of hits, lot of punishment, and you got a good chance to have an injury issue. And that’s why we couldn’t make that kind of commitment of dollars to that position.”
The Cowboys have lost nothing anyway!
As soon as he starts breaking long runs again, that eight man is going to creep into the box. Then of course, Romo gets to go to work over the top to star receiver Dez Bryant to make them pay. All the need is to fix that defense, and the already have Hardy, and they might mess around and win a Super Bowl.