I don’t know about anyone else, but I am amped up for Week 1! Sunday can’t get here quick enough for me, my dick is chapped from rosterbating and I ran out of insults to spew at my Week 1 opponent about 3 days ago. I NEED Sunday, and I NEEDED it yesterday.
My passion league — I’d trade last place finishes in every other league for a championship in this one — is a 16 team dynasty. We drafted on August 30th and at this point I’m literally drawing a salary to stare at match-up projections that haven’t changed in days. I love my team (don’t we all leading up to the season?), but my favorite thing about my Week 1 match-up is that I’m playing against DeMarco Murray, because DeMarco Murray sucks.
Murray’s been in the league for 5 years and outside of his AMAZING 2014 he’s been an average RB at best – taking out 2014 he’s played in 52 games and broke the 100 yard barrier just 8 times or just over 15% of his games played. And I know, it’s easy to skew numbers when we remove a near record breaking year – but check out some of these facts:
In 2014, Murray had 392 rushes –- prior to that year, his high was 217 attempts, or 175 less carries than he had in 2014. For comparison’s sake, when Adrian Peterson went for 2,097 yards in 2012, he did it on 348 carries.
Since 2009 only 3 running backs have broken 350 carries in a season:
Arian Foster – 351 – 2012
Chris Johnson – 358 – 2009
DeMarco Murray – 392 – 2014
Running backs just don’t get those kind of touches!
In 2015 — or one year after DeMarco got shipped to Philly — Dallas’ leading rusher was 29-year-old Darren McFadden who rushed for 1,089 yards on 239 carries –- that’s 4.6 yards a carry, which is 1.3 yards higher than his average over the last 3 seasons. Point being this Dallas O-line could make Trent Richardson a successful running back…Well that might be a slight case of hyperbole, but the point still stands.
Murray is currently going off the board at 38th overall -– making him a late 3rd/early 4th rounder –- which is great, right? Not overhyped, as you drafted him knowing he’s not your RB1, but the problem is he’s till your RB2.
It’s only a matter of time before Derrick Henry becomes the lead back for the Titans, and then Murray is just a 4th round handicap. And the cherry on top –- even if I’m wrong and Murray goes for 3K this year -– he has a bye week 13 aka round one of the fantasy playoffs –- only Roger Goodell could find a way to fuck up fantasy football, right?
https://twitter.com/JoshNorris/status/771533923050401792
So for all you poor, unfortunate souls who drafted Murray because you think Chip Kelly is a moron — to be clear, he is, but he’s not the reason Murray sucked last year — trade him, and trade him now. Start with a guy like Matt Forte (ADP 44th) or even Melvin Gordon (ADP 46th) and get a deal done. Not only is Murray a bad runner, but the Titans don’t play a team that’s finished lower than 19th in rush yards allowed per game in 2015 until Cleveland in week 6.
I promise Murray’s stock is only going down -– get out and get out quick!
