DeMarco Murray
There’s both good news and bad news about DeMarco Murray heading into fantasy football leagues next year. The good news is that Murray is clearly the best running back on this team and he’s going to get the lion’s share of the touches for the Cowboys. He’s been relatively productive with those touches too. His 4.1 yards per carry average illustrate that quite clearly. He’s also a good receiving threat with over a quarter of his total yardage this year coming through the air in fantasy football leagues. That’s pretty good news for a young player playing in a potent offense. However the bad news might outweigh the good news when it comes to Murray in fantasy football pay leagues.
He’s an injury machine who’s missed several games in the past two years with various ailments. That includes six games just from this past year. There’s also the matter of his fumbles to contend with too. Fumbles by themselves are not a reason for concern but with Murray the fumbles mean something because he’s still receiving a lot of scrutiny in Dallas. He’s also got a low touchdown total. That counts just four rushing touchdowns in ten games this past year. That’s hardly the stat line you want to see on a starting running back in fantasy football pay leagues. Murray has upside though. He’s a good runner with versatile abilities and he faces no real competition for the starting job in Dallas. He’s also going to be the beneficiary of a better Cowboys passing game in 2013. Murray’s a decent running back and that fact means he’ll probably be taken much earlier than he should in fantasy drafts this year. Expect him to go somewhere between the fourth and sixth rounds of your fantasy draft depending on the size of your league.
It is tough to really determine if Murray is going to be that go-to running back for a long time or not. He was a great running back in 2012, but the Cowboys are kind of in the process of going through a bit of a transformation. If they do not end up utilizing Murray in the near future, they are going to have a hard time moving him for some value. Therefore, chances are the Cowboys will ride him for the time being and see what type of skills he has as a featured back.