DeMarco Murray: Not the Risk You Think He Is

DeMarco Murray is coming off the best season of his career in which he dominated fantasy football with only one other running back even coming close to his total points. In standard scoring, you could knock an entire 5 points a game off DeMarco’s season total (80 points total) and he would still be the RB6 last year. What's the aftermath of this incredible season do for his draft position? Murray’s ADP is anywhere from 8th to 15th depending on what site you use. This represents a fantastic steal for fantasy owners.

DeMarco Murray won’t have a repeat of 2014, no one’s arguing that. His 449 touches last year is an unsustainable pace that had not been matched in the NFL since Larry Johnson in 2006, but he doesn’t need that many touches to be an extremely productive back. People seem to forget that Murray was the RB7 in 2013 with 270 touches and that's a number he can definitely match in 2015.

In 2014, the Eagles running backs combined for 415 carries. Based off last years running back carry splits and Murray's previous workloads,  i’m projecting Murray for 250 carries. That gives Darren Sproles the same 57 carries he had last year and would leave 108 carries for Ryan Mathews if the Eagles were to repeat last years rushing attempts. I believe the Eagles will be looking to run the ball more this year with the loss of Jeremy Maclin and the additions of Murray and Mathews, plus with Sam Bradford and Mark Sanchez as the potential starters at QB it makes sense to run the ball more and take pressure off of your non-superstar signal caller.

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With that said what can we expect Murray to do in 2015? 250 carries at a 4.5 YPC and 45 catches at 7 yards per catch seems more than reasonable. That's 1,440 total yards and it's a conservative estimate, especially when Murray’s career YPC is 4.8 and he has exceeded 50 catches in each of the past two years. He moves from one very good offensive line to another so there shouldn’t be much drop-off to factor in there. Furthermore, Murray appeared to tire down the stretch with a meager 3.93 YPC in the final five games. That seems far less likely to happen with a lower number of carries and Ryan Mathews to sub in as needed.

Last year seven other running backs exceeded that 1,440 yards from scrimmage total. Of those seven I could easily make a case for taking Murray over Forte, Foster, Forsett and McCoy. Forte is now 29 and coming off a season with just a 3.9 YPC and without Marc Trestman his reception total is expected to decrease significantly. I see Foster as a greater injury risk. Justin Forsett is a player I do like but he has no established history of dominance prior to last year, and at age 29/30 this season he isn’t a reasonable first round pick. Lastly, we have LeSean McCoy, the man DeMarco Murray is taking over for in Philly. McCoy was down across the board last year and moves to a much worse offense with a worse offensive line. There’s no way I’d prefer him to Murray.

Let’s go back to me mentioning Arian Foster as a greater injury risk. Even if most people agree with that statement, injury risk seems to be the biggest holdup in considering DeMarco Murray in the first round of a draft. This is the result of a belief that running backs with a high number of touches have an increased injury risk the following year, or at least see a large decrease in efficiency after taking on such a workload.

I gathered data on every running back with at least 350 touches from 2009-2013. Over that timespan there were 15 RB seasons of 350+ touches. What I found surprised me: the perception of injury risk or ineffectiveness just isn’t true. In the year following 350 touches, 12 RBs (80%) played at least 13 games. Furthermore, each of those RBs that played at least 13 games had 1400+ total yards the year after they exceeded 350 touches. Even counting the three RBs that missed significant time (Maurice Jones-Drew, Arian Foster and Doug Martin), the average total yards from scrimmage was 1,432. Again, that is the year after they had 350 touches.

The conclusion I’ve drawn from this data is that an RB is far more likely to produce another RB1 season than they are to get injured following a season with an excessive workload. It is true that DeMarco Murray had the most touches of any back in the data I used, but the fact remains that an exceptionally high number of carries doesn’t seem to pose significant injury risk. It’s not often you can get the most recent top-scoring RB at a discount. Barring any major changes in ADP, DeMarco Murray is a steal and I’d be very happy to get him even at 5th or 6th overall. He’s on a good team with a good offensive line and looks poised for another RB1 season.