Not signing Murray was the right decision from a probability perspective (see my post above).
The real question is whether they should have drafted a RB or signed one in free agency. I have not studied the progress of the 3rd round RBs, but I'm guessing most were probably not going to be a big improvement this season.
The 2 things that would have been a low cost investment were Chris Johnson and the UDFA Rawls. They almost signed Rawls and they brought CJ in for a workout. They probably just needed to make Rawls and Leary type offer. IIRC CJ was signed by AZ late in the preseason. If true, I'm curious if Randle was showing any signs of flaking out during the preseason.
So far there is not proof of a mistake because McFadden is playing well; however, CJ would have been good depth and Rawls would be depth and/or a guy for the future.
I don't buy that 370 touch stuff. I went back and looked at all of the Top 20 single season rushers. If you add up their total touches they went over 370 many many times and combined they had dozens of great seasons after such high volume seasons. This is especially true earlier in their career and 27 was no magic number.
The thing about career years is that you don't know when it is a career year or not until it is all over. A lot of people would say Emmitt would never set his career high of 2148 yards and 25 TDs on 439 touches after 3 seasons of 400+ touches. But he did. It was 2500 yds and 31 TDs if you count the postseason on 519 touches.
And he followed it up with a 1454 yards and 15 TDs season. Was that a failure compared to his career year? Does Brady have to throw 50 TDs every year to worth the money?
And no one counts playoff and preseason touches either. RBs have much more stamina than those 370+ carry blogs give them credit for.
Emmitt is just one of the dozens of examples.
