1. McFadden was outplayed by Randle. If Randle doesn't go insane, McFadden would be a backup. Two, McFadden has a history of injury. He was healthy this year, just as Murray was healthy for the first time in his contract year. Three, given the immense jump in performance from going to Oakland to coming here, there is no reason to believe that if we draft a top notch runningback, that they won't bring more to the table running behind our O-line. Four, McFadden's running style isn't what brought us immense success in 2014. McFadden is a finesse runner. He may get 5 to 10 yards, but then he's going for -2. Murray was almost never going backwards here and he was nearly automatic on 3rd downs and on the goal line. McFadden is not. Stats don't tell the whole story. If they did, Weeden would still be here.
We let Murray go because we didn't believe he could have similar performance another year after the insane amount of carries he had and his injury history. Why should we believe the same of McFadden, who also has a history of injuries? We didn't get success in 2014 with finesse running. We got it through power running, and the more finesseful runners in Randle and Dunbar, got the remaining carries after that. It's no surprise our offense looked completely different in 2015 and that's with Romo in the game.
