LaDainian Tomlinson: Emmitt Smith is right!

[big dog cowboy]

The others are all Dallas players besides Murray who had carries on 3rd or 4th and 1-2 yards to go, or from the opponent's 1 or 2-yard line on any down.

By chance any of those other players include Romo? Just thinking about him taking a knee.

 

[percyhoward]

By chance any of those other players include Romo? Just thinking about him taking a knee.

Good catch. 2 of the 126 "runs" were Romo kneel downs in short-yardage situations. One just before the game-winning FG to beat Miami in 2011, the other in OT at the 1-yard line to set up the FG that beat the Steelers after Carr's INT in 2012. Here's what it looks like without those two:

Dallas Short Yardage Conversions 2011-14
Murray 55 of 76 (76.3%)
others 28 of 48 (58.3%)

So Murray was good (we knew that).

He was especially good in short-yardage situations, and somebody will have to take up that slack. But this particular aspect of the RB situation isn't one of the biggest worries, because the fortunate thing about short yardage is we only need to find one guy who's good at it, whereas blitz pickup is something that they all need to be able to do if they're going to be in the game.