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DeMarco Murray is gone, and all signs point to the Cowboys rolling with Joseph Randle, a third-year back out of Oklahoma State who was drafted in the fifth round. As he is replacing a running back who won the Offensive Player of the Year award, Randle had a lot of pressure on him even before he insinuated that Murray wasn't flawless last season.
There's not a lot of Randle to look at yet, as he only has just over 100 NFL carries. But let's answer a few questions you may have about the back.
Why would the Cowboys get rid of DeMarco Murray?
That's an interesting question, and one that boils down to two things: your belief in single-season running back mileage and your belief in the value of the running back position.
A very popular idea that sprung out of the early annals of football analytics is The Curse of 370. It's an idea that sprung from some very simple correlation thinking: Everybody who had run the ball 370 or more times either fell off badly next season or was Eric Dickerson. DeMarco Murray ran the ball over 400 times last season if we count his playoff totes.
I wouldn't necessarily call him a lock to play worse in 2015—Murray's earlier injuries have kept a lot of workload off his tires—but some regression is probably inevitable.
Then there's the league-wide devaluation of the running back position. Barring some sort of Adrian Peterson-esque talent, teams have been much more reluctant to commit money to backs. The Cowboys appear to be a rather extreme outlier here, to the point where their offer to Murray was comically low.
That has left the Cowboys with one real choice at back: Randle.
OK, but why haven't the Cowboys actually tried to do better at the position?
Again, reading the tea leaves, it appears that the Cowboys believe that their offensive line is much more important than the back running behind it. There were multiple chances for Dallas to pull the trigger on a running back in the draft, in what was considered a stacked class. They didn't even add a pithy late-rounder or undrafted free agent.
Certainly the major speculation has connected the Cowboys to players who have made mistakes off the field, both because those players are big names and because Dallas has tended to be forgiving of talented players with "poor makeup." Perhaps there's still a chance that Dallas could look to bring in Roger Goodell-branded pariah Ray Rice later on, but it became very clear that Dallas and Minnesota weren't going to come eye-to-eye on an Adrian Peterson trade once we learned the Vikings wanted picks of actual consequence for him.
As for why the Cowboys haven't created a better mix of talent at the position, the Cowboys are looking for rehab projects rather than steady players. Darren McFadden still has the size and speed that made him highly coveted coming out of the draft—he just carries an on-field record so bad that the Raiders replaced him with Trent Richardson on purpose. Ryan Williams is trying to make it back from a devastating injury suffered in his rookie season, just as he has been for the past two years.
Lance Dunbar has done some interesting work as a passing back, and Lache Seastrunk was a big talent coming out of Baylor that has butted heads with every NFL coaching staff he comes into contact with. But that's a pretty motley assortment of backs as far as trying to find a real replacement for Murray—or even a challenger for Randle.
What makes Randle worthy of the job?
It's been a small sample size, but Randle has actually been pretty good for the Cowboys when he's played.
Randle rushed for over 6.7 yards per attempt last season, and he had the fourth-most DYAR (per Football Outsiders) of any running back with fewer than 100 carries. Now, that doesn't tell us that Randle is a good back—running back yards per carry is a notoriously unreliable statistic that takes forever to stabilize. But certainly we saw nothing on the field in 2014 to make us doubt Randle.
How highly was Randle thought of as a draft prospect?
Glad you asked, let's consult the Matt Waldman RSP for 2013:
Randle has good patience, he reads his blocks well on draws and spread formation plays, and he can press the hole and cut back on zone runs. He carries the ball tight to his body in traffic and he will use his outside arm to protect the ball to either side of the field.
...
Randle’s speed and agility are below average for an NFL runner, but he’s often regarded as one of the ten-best runners in this class. I think his burst is average at best. He’s a choppy-stepped runner who can make small changes of direction but not the dynamic kind to avoid early penetration at the line of scrimmage.
Waldman ranked Randle as the 28th-best running back in the 2013 class. Reading between the lines, I think it's fair to say Waldman saw Randle's ceiling as being a steady-but-unspectacular back who would be best suited as part of a committee approach.
Just as his yards per carry in 2014 is not, alone, a reason to blindly believe in him, this isn't a reason to disqualify him. But it is part of the picture that I believe explains a lot more to us than what happened in 54 carries last season.
Will Randle be able to replace Murray's production?
Almost certainly not. But the Cowboys will probably not be asking him to do that.
If I had to guess based on the current talent on the roster, I'd guess that Randle will be the lead back in a committee, with McFadden getting a series here or there and Dunbar coming in on passing downs. I think there's a reason to believe in the Dallas offensive line making everything easier for Randle, but keep in mind that just because the Cowboys had one of the best lines in recent memory in 2014 doesn't mean they'll be a lock to repeat the performance.
All you need to do is look within the division to the Eagles, who went from 2013 powerhouse to a hit-and-miss 2014 season after getting gashed by injuries. Injuries aren't an exception: They're the norm. The Cowboys only missed a few games of Doug Free down the stretch—everyone else essentially played a full season. Odds are that won't happen again.
The Cowboys seem well prepared for that after drafting Chaz Green out of Florida in the third round, as well as signing La'el Collins as an undrafted free agent. But there's an element of uncertainty to most rookie linemen. I think it's smart to lean on the Cowboys offensive line carrying Randle, but we do have to acknowledge there's at least a chance it doesn't.
So should I draft Randle in fantasy football, then?
As you can say about almost every fantasy football pick: It depends on your risk tolerance.
The problem with Randle is not the situation; it's the lack of a strong track record of performance. There's a lot of uncertainty here, and since the Cowboys have hardly invested much in Randle, they don't have an incentive to stick with him if he's not producing.
These are the reasons why the fantasy community has tended to park Randle in the third-to-fifth-round range—the discount for the uncertainty is priced in here. You are betting more on the Cowboys offensive line than on Randle, as even a player like Ryan Mathews or Mark Ingram plugged behind this line would be a certain first-round fantasy football pick.
The Cowboys very well may receive some comeuppance for letting Murray walk, even though it was pretty much a given for them based on where they are with their cap space.
My read on Randle is that he's more of a supporting back than a lead back and that the Cowboys would probably have been better off drafting a little real competition for him. That said, there's enough talent here to create a pretty good season if that offensive line is dealing.
Rivers McCown is an NFL Analyst for Bleacher Report and the co-host of the Three-Cone Drill podcast. His work has also appeared on Football Outsiders and ESPN.com. Follow him on Twitter at @riversmccown.
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