Via Jon Machota The Dallas Morning News - Throughout the season, Jason Garrett routinely referred to DeMarco Murray as the team’s bell cow. Murray did more than just rush for over 1,800 yards and break Emmitt Smith’s single-season franchise record, he set the tone and helped provide an identity for the 2014 Dallas Cowboys. But the 26-year-old All-Pro running back could end up playing elsewhere in 2015. Cowboys owner Jerry Jones acknowledged Thursday that re-signing Dez Bryant and Murray this off-season will be a challenge. The Cowboys offered Murray a four-year deal worth roughly $16 million before the season. However, that was before Murray showed he could stay healthy for an entire year and lead the league in rushing. No one would be happier than Garrett to see Murray return. While wrapping up the season with a Tuesday press conference, Garrett vividly recalled how Murray handled having surgery on a broken bone in his left hand last month. “What he did for our football team after he broke his hand, I thought was really significant,” Garrett said. “After that ballgame, he looked me in the eye and said ‘I’m playing.’ I had a conversation with him on the plane that night, ‘I’m playing.’ The next day, ‘I’m playing.’ After his surgery, ‘I’m playing.’ He went out two days later and practiced and then three days later and played. “I think that really, really pervaded our team to understand what he was all about and what our team was all about. That was big.” But Murray plays a position that has seen its value decrease. One-man backfields have become more rare each year. He also carried the ball 392 times. Historically, backs experiencing that kind of workload see their production sharply decline in future seasons. The Cowboys made a huge mistake with their last big running back contract, giving Marion Barber a seven-year, $45 million deal with $16 million guaranteed in 2008. The last running back to switch teams in free agency with a deal of more than $5 million a year was Atlanta’s Michael Turner in 2008. He signed a six-year, $34.5 million contract. Even though Garrett calls Murray a “great football player” who has “a lot of good years of football ahead of him,” it’s very possible that the Cowboys front office could let him walk. Murray said Monday that he wasn’t worried about his future at the moment. “He had a fantastic year, obviously,” Garrett said. “He’s been a great football player really ever since he got here. He’s a complete back. He’s a great runner, receiver, blocker, all the things that you want a running back to do. Just beyond the production, to rush for the number of yards he rushed for, to have the number of carries that he had, I just thought he was amazing week in and week out. “But I think that idea of his mindset, his mentality, his demeanor, his toughness, I think that really, really helped the identity of our football team. In many ways, he established the identity of our football team. The offensive line was a big part of it, to be able to hand the ball to a guy again and again and again and for him to be consistently performing at the level he performed, I thought it was really, really impressive. And again, I think it pervaded our offensive unit, pervaded our whole football team and made us all better.”
Posted on: Fri, 16 Jan 2015 23:00:30 +0000
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