Eagles open to trading Murray

[Sydla]

I am not comparing a closer to JUST any NFL back. I am comparing a closer to the BEST back in the NFL in 2014. We are not just talking about some average NFL RB here, we are talking about the franchise record setting single season rusher, NFL rushing leader in 2014, NFL offensive player of the year and most consecutive 100 yard games in history of the NFL. Again, your agenda is obvious, put down a Cowboy's great accomplishments to justify Jerry and Stephen's inept preparation and decision making.

Yet again with the YPC nonsense. Seriously, if you could not see the difference between Murray's performance against the Eagles and Randle's performance against the Eagles, I just don't know what to tell you. Watch the games again. Its not about YPC, it's about the total production and not abandoning the run game so the team can continue to be a multiple threat on offense. It's about extending drives and keeping the D fresh. With Randle, that was never the case. Randle could not BUY a 3rd and short. He did not have a SINGLE 100 yard game as the starter. How can you claim with a straight face that their impacts were even close??? Murray may have had poor YPC against the Eagles but he extended drives and scored. PERIOD.

It doesn't matter if you are comparing a closer to the a good back or a bad tailback. Age, injuries, wear and tear, etc. plays a much bigger role in a football player's future than your best salesman or top performer in the business world. How can't you see what a terrible analogy this is?

And you are looking at what you want to look at it. Again, the sample of 4 games you want to use to justify Murray is flawed. You can sit there and continue to think that with Murray this team would have been decent but that ignores realities and cements your spot as one of this board's biggest Murray homers.

 

[BAT]

Again, we ranked 5th in yards per rush on 1st down. We ranked 6th in overall yards per rush overall. That's all 16 games.


So pick something from that hodgepodge and use it to make a case that Murray would have made a significant difference in 2015.

5th in 2015 is not the same as 5th in 2014, let alone FIRST or SECOND. 2015 was a poor rushing year overall in the NFL. This is what I mean about stats without context. Projecting Murray's performance with the Cowboys in 2015 is fantasy and is neither my point nor my intent. I am only discussing what is lost when stats are presented in a vacuum. Murray's value was more than just rushing the ball and his impact on the offense and the team as a whole cannot be captured completely with stats.

Just my .02 cents.

 

[BAT]

You get one or the other: cheaper OR better, not both

It's rare to get both. Greatest likelihood of achieving both is through the draft. But young guys sometimes take time, and Romo does not have a lot of that.

 

[Nightman]

It's rare to get both. Greatest likelihood of achieving both is through the draft. But young guys sometimes take time, and Romo does not have a lot of that.

Exactly.

Randle was cheaper, DMC was cheaper, CMike was cheaper, Turbin was cheaper.

None were better or even close. There goes that dime a dozen argument. We were 0-4.

 

[percyhoward]

I am only discussing what is lost when stats are presented in a vacuum.

I think we established that a way's back, but obviously I agree.

 

[DandyDon52]

This was from back in feb 2015.
I can only gather that the ""brackets" were the problem !
Jerry went into jerry speak when talking about them so hard to get a clear picture.
He evidently wanted DM but only if they got him cheap lol.

|INDIANAPOLIS - Jerry Jones said Saturday that he wants DeMarco Murray to be a Dallas Cowboy for his entire career.

The NFL's leading rusher from last season will become a free agent next month if a contract extension is not reached.

What is the number Jones is willing to pay the 27-year-old running back?

"I don't see a number," Jones said. "I see a range."
(jerry speak starts)
"In a legitimate negotiation you usually have both of them thinking ranges," Jones continued. "You have both of them in brackets. You have both of them thinking brackets and within the parameters how you get a deal done. And you can usually tell if one or the other is outside the parameters significantly and then there really is - usually both parties to a negotiation know because they've bracketed and realize they're not in sync with the bracket, then they know for whatever the reasons something else has got to play in."

How are the brackets between the Cowboys and Murray?

"We want DeMarco enough that I got some serious flexibility in my bracket," Jones said........not enough jerry congrats on 2015

http://sportsday.***BANNED-URL***/d...murray-with-the-cowboys-for-his-entire-career

 

[Sydla]

Exactly.

Randle was cheaper, DMC was cheaper, CMike was cheaper, Turbin was cheaper.

None were better or even close. There goes that dime a dozen argument. We were 0-4.

That's largely debateable, at least from McFadden's perspective.

Let me ask you this. Let's say we have Murray and the same things happen in 2015 - Romo and Bryant get hurt. What is the Cowboys record?

 

[DandyDon52]

another feb article:

Coach Jason Garrett has made it clear he wants the league’s leading rusher and NFL Offensive Player of the Year back in the fold.

Jones doesn’t want to let Murray get away a year after surpassing Emmitt Smith’s franchise record for rushing yards in a season. But Jones pointed out that the Cowboys parted ways with defensive end DeMarcus Ware, the team’s all-time sacks leader, after last season for financial reasons.

“There’s your perfect case of having to move on from a player that you really thought was one of your cornerstone of your team,” Jones said.

Jones was again clear that the emphasis will be on the running game, which played such a big role in the Cowboys’ success in 2014 and Romo having the best season of his career, with or without Murray.

“We will not change that at all, as far as our emphasis on the running game,” Jones said.


Read more here: http://www.star-telegram.com/sports...orner-blog/article10897175.html#storylink=cpy

ok now it is funny, as he says the emphasis will be on the running game, yet doesnt sign the star RB that the HC wants back,
due to cant pay him that much,and then turns around and pays twice that amount to a wr !

That puts the emphasis will be on the passing game??

 

[DandyDon52]

That's largely debateable, at least from McFadden's perspective.

Let me ask you this. Let's say we have Murray and the same things happen in 2015 - Romo and Bryant get hurt. What is the Cowboys record?

That is a tough one, all we can do is speculate.
I have rewatched the first 6 games and Randle and Mcf did run the ball pretty good.
The only thing that I can think is the coaches did not have confidence in the RB's they had,
or know how they wanted to use them or what would be the most effective, and that changed
how they game planned and called plays.
Had they had Murray they would know already.
Also in watching these again, weeden played pretty good for most part, better than I thought at the time.

Game 1 NYG
Romo 45 passes
Runs 22
This suggests the lack of confidence in running. and is not balanced or run heavy.
They should have lost this game.

Game 2 eagles
33 passes
22 runs
defense played great in this game and only reason they won

Game 3 atl
26 passes....1int
21 runs
more balanced, but I think most of the runs came in the first half. shut out in 2nd half lost the game.

Game 4 NO
26 passes
25 runs......randle 10 McF 11
Balanced, and they were tied and lost on NO score td on first poss. so real close to win when balanced

Game 5 NE
39 passes....1int
21 runs
Except for NO game randle got the bulk of the carries.
In this game they went with too much passing

Game 6 NYG
17 of 27 passes ...3 int
40 runs 36 by rb's and 4 by lucky
In this game they ran plenty, which was good, McF had 152 yards the others had 72
They lost only because the 3 ints, which had they played weedon again might not have happened.
And then the harris 100yd td on ko, and the beasely muffed punt fumble with 1:32 left.
So finally they ran the ball like they should have as soon as Romo was hurt, but The change of qb , and the 2 bad plays on ST
lost the game.

So had they stuck with weeden and ran 30-35 maybe even 40 times a game, they would have won more games,
and maybe win the div.
And I think JG wanted to stay with weeden but was forced to go to Cassel too soon.

 

[robjay04]

That is a tough one, all we can do is speculate.
I have rewatched the first 6 games and Randle and Mcf did run the ball pretty good.
The only thing that I can think is the coaches did not have confidence in the RB's they had,
or know how they wanted to use them or what would be the most effective, and that changed
how they game planned and called plays.
Had they had Murray they would know already.
Also in watching these again, weeden played pretty good for most part, better than I thought at the time.

Game 1 NYG
Romo 45 passes
Runs 22
This suggests the lack of confidence in running. and is not balanced or run heavy.
They should have lost this game.

Game 2 eagles
33 passes
22 runs
defense played great in this game and only reason they won

Game 3 atl
26 passes....1int
21 runs
more balanced, but I think most of the runs came in the first half. shut out in 2nd half lost the game.

Game 4 NO
26 passes
25 runs......randle 10 McF 11
Balanced, and they were tied and lost on NO score td on first poss. so real close to win when balanced

Game 5 NE
39 passes....1int
21 runs
Except for NO game randle got the bulk of the carries.
In this game they went with too much passing

Game 6 NYG
17 of 27 passes ...3 int
40 runs 36 by rb's and 4 by lucky
In this game they ran plenty, which was good, McF had 152 yards the others had 72
They lost only because the 3 ints, which had they played weedon again might not have happened.
And then the harris 100yd td on ko, and the beasely muffed punt fumble with 1:32 left.
So finally they ran the ball like they should have as soon as Romo was hurt, but The change of qb , and the 2 bad plays on ST
lost the game.

So had they stuck with weeden and ran 30-35 maybe even 40 times a game, they would have won more games,
and maybe win the div.
And I think JG wanted to stay with weeden but was forced to go to Cassel too soon.

Game 1 tough divisional game...rusty first game of the season.

Game 2, tough divisional game, tough matchup for our rushing offense even with Murray last year.

Can't look further than that. Everything changed in regards to the offense without Romo. Defenses didn't look at us the same, we didn't have a quarterback to dissect defenses and put us in the right situations. You can't underestimate how much of a genius Romo has become with with his pre snap adjustments. That did contribute to our success in 2014, Weeden or Cassel couldn't come close to replicating that.

 

[Nightman]

That's largely debateable, at least from McFadden's perspective.

Let me ask you this. Let's say we have Murray and the same things happen in 2015 - Romo and Bryant get hurt. What is the Cowboys record?

What ifs are meaningless.

We intentionally downgraded to save money and it showed.

 

[Sydla]

What ifs are meaningless.

We intentionally downgraded to save money and it showed.

It's not meaningless when you guys are trying to argue the team clearly missed Murray.

Showed how? They were 2-0 before Romo blew his collarbone up.

You have no idea how the offense would have looked with McFadden if Romo had been healthy. Continually trying to argue that this offense missed Murray when it's not an apples to apples comparison to 2014 is a stretch at this point.

Maybe if Romo had been healthy it would have been obvious we missed Murray. But without Romo, it's impossible to say definitively one way or the other.

 

[DandyDon52]

You are walking a very fine line if you are talking about wanting to acquire players currently on contract with another team. It can be seen as a form of tampering.

Well I have no idea of the rules on that, but I see your point.
I guess if he isnt a FA they cant comment or contact the player.

 

[DandyDon52]

I wouldn't do anything unless PHI pays most of the money. They signed him to hurt us so we can't let them off the hook.

Murray gets another 9m by staying with PHI for the year. I would spend a year in jail for 9m.

yeah me too lol
But it would depend on how much he might lose, and how bad he wants out of phil.
I would be willing to make less just to get out of philly, and go elsewhere.

 

[DandyDon52]

You are correct about them being able to redo the contract if Murray were up for it. However, there are a couple of stumbling blocks with him leaving Philly/coming back to Dallas; First, Philly would take a huge cap hit by trading/releasing him...here is an excerpt from an article appearing in "The Landryhat":

“The problem comes from the guaranteed money due in 2016 and beyond,” Mike Florio wrote on Pro Football Talk Sunday. “Murray has a fully-guaranteed $7 million base salary this year, and $2 million of his 2017 base salary is fully guaranteed. Murray would have to take less this year, and possibly waive his guarantees for 2017, to facilitate a trade.”

I am far from being a cap guru, so I don't know how many ways around these things there are, but I read somewhere recently that they would incur about $8M in dead cap by trading or releasing him.
The other problem would be related to Murray's willingness to take less (a lot less) in salary. If JJ offered him 4 yrs/$24M last year, he's going to offer less than that now (another year of wear on the tires). This is just my amateur opinion, but to me there are just too many obstacles to call his return anything but a pipedream. He probably has two more decent years in him, but he likely won't get to spend them in a Cowboys uniform.

Well if they offered him 12 m G , and 6 mil a year, that might be good enough.

And yeah very slim chance of Murray coming back here or going to another team this year.

Pederson is the new coach, and I would think, that he would come out and say murray is going to be his back this year,
if that is what he intends or thinks will happen.
I dont think it is smart to say nothing with all the rumors going around.
If they dont have a plan to utilize murray, and get him on board with the team, I dont see the point in keeping him on the roster.

 

[DandyDon52]

Game 1 tough divisional game...rusty first game of the season.

Game 2, tough divisional game, tough matchup for our rushing offense even with Murray last year.

Can't look further than that. Everything changed in regards to the offense without Romo. Defenses didn't look at us the same, we didn't have a quarterback to dissect defenses and put us in the right situations. You can't underestimate how much of a genius Romo has become with with his pre snap adjustments. That did contribute to our success in 2014, Weeden or Cassel couldn't come close to replicating that.

Weeden if coached up properly, should have been able to come close.
Dont forget no one is saying the bkups should do as good as Romo, just good enough to win some games and go .500 at least.
Defenses were not going all out to stop the run, they were playing the pass even with weeden and Cassel.

and I agree eagles run defense was good last year, and still good in 15
But in game 1 45 passes is too much. and it says they did not have confidence in the run.

 

[percyhoward]

Let's say we have Murray and the same things happen in 2015 - Romo and Bryant get hurt. What is the Cowboys record?

That's the only question that matters, and nobody will touch it.

We were never going to the playoffs with the quarterbacks we put on the field. Consider that Dallas ranked 29th in passer rating differential (offense's rating minus defense's rating). As far back as I can find information (2004), no team that ranked in the bottom 5 in PRD ever had a winning record. That's 0 times out of 60 teams. The way that differential broke down, we ranked 20th on defense and 30th on offense. Pass offense is what killed us. We could have only made the playoffs with a great pass defense, as Denver did. And we didn't have anything approaching that.

 

[plasticman]

Even if Tony Romo was able to stay healthy and the Cowboys made it to the playoffs, they weren't going to accomplish much. They just weren't the same team. Romo and the Cowboys was struggling before his first injury.

In the first two games, the Cowboys couldn't score more than 6 points. in fact they couldn't do it in three of Romo's four starts. I'm not blaming him, I'm saying he did not get enough help from the running game. He threw multiple INT's in three of the four starts

How many of you want to say that the Cowboys didn't look completely different as an offense without Murray from the very beginning? It seems I have to constantly remind people that, not only was Murray an excellent blocker, he was also the 3rd leading receiver while he was here.

Murray struggled with the Eagles, of course he would, different system, different offense, different O-line, different quarterback. The same thing happened with McFadden, he averaged 3.1 yards a carry or less in 7 of his first 11 games.

Yes, it won't happen but I can still dream of a situation where McFadden and Murray are the RB's in Dallas. I don't think there will have been a more exciting combo since Duane Thomas and Calvin Hill in 1971 when they helped the Cowboys average 38 points a game in their last 4 games, the NFL record for points scored in the last 4 games in a 14 game format

In fact, only 5 teams in the 16 game format have scored more in the last four games of the season. One of them was the Cowboys, who scored 165 points, an average of 41 points a game.........in 2014.

 

[gmoney112]

Even if Tony Romo was able to stay healthy and the Cowboys made it to the playoffs, they weren't going to accomplish much. They just weren't the same team. Romo and the Cowboys was struggling before his first injury.

In the first two games, the Cowboys couldn't score more than 6 points. in fact they couldn't do it in three of Romo's four starts. I'm not blaming him, I'm saying he did not get enough help from the running game. He threw multiple INT's in three of the four starts

How many of you want to say that the Cowboys didn't look completely different as an offense without Murray from the very beginning? It seems I have to constantly remind people that, not only was Murray an excellent blocker, he was also the 3rd leading receiver while he was here.

Murray struggled with the Eagles, of course he would, different system, different offense, different O-line, different quarterback. The same thing happened with McFadden, he averaged 3.1 yards a carry or less in 7 of his first 11 games.

Yes, it won't happen but I can still dream of a situation where McFadden and Murray are the RB's in Dallas. I don't think there will have been a more exciting combo since Duane Thomas and Calvin Hill in 1971 when they helped the Cowboys average 38 points a game in their last 4 games, the NFL record for points scored in the last 4 games in a 14 game format

In fact, only 5 teams in the 16 game format have scored more in the last four games of the season. One of them was the Cowboys, who scored 165 points, an average of 41 points a game.........in 2014.

More than 6 points? We scored 27 in the opener, and that was with receivers tipping passes to the other team.

They were "struggling" because the OL didn't play together during the preseason and Martin was obviously still injured.

You guys spend every day on this site and didn't pay attention to a single off-season article?

Murray only led the league in rushing because he was given 100 more carries that year than anyone else. He might have led to one additional win but anyone saying we're making the playoffs because of a RB when we have one of the worst passing offenses in the league is smoking crack.

His contract is absolutely ridiculous and is setting a precedent for paying above average RB's like they're elite. The whole league is laughing at Philly.

And Murray isn't going to sacrifice a handful of millions to come to Dallas. Sorry to burst your bubble.

 

[plasticman]

More than 6 points? We scored 27 in the opener, and that was with receivers tipping passes to the other team.

They were "struggling" because the OL didn't play together during the preseason and Martin was obviously still injured.

You guys spend every day on this site and didn't pay attention to a single off-season article?

Murray only led the league in rushing because he was given 100 more carries that year than anyone else. He might have led to one additional win but anyone saying we're making the playoffs because of a RB when we have one of the worst passing offenses in the league is smoking crack.

His contract is absolutely ridiculous and is setting a precedent for paying above average RB's like they're elite. The whole league is laughing at Philly.

And Murray isn't going to sacrifice a handful of millions to come to Dallas. Sorry to burst your bubble.

My mistake, I was referring to the 1st half, In three games, they couldn't score more than six points in three of the four games Romo started. In 2014 they scored 6 or less in the 1st half a total of two times, one of them was opening day in San Fransisco.

Murray received that many carries because he was being productive. If a RB consistently carries the ball 5 yards most NFL coaches agree its a pretty good idea to keep doing it.

If, however, the RB averages 3 yards a carry, as McFadden did 7 of the first 11 games, you are then forced to look elsewhere for productivity. In addition, those results have probably contributed to a scoring defect, pretty much confirmed when you consider that, yes, Murray had 100 more runs, but quadrupled the TD's.

On two occasions last season, McFadden had 10 or more carries in game and averaged less than 2 yards a carry. How many times has Murray carried the ball ten or more times as a Cowboy and averaged less than 2 yards? Not once in the four years he was here. Not in teh three years before Martin was ever a Cowboy but , apparently, this offense can no longer function without the critical contributions from their Right Guard.