Before this season, the Cowboys talked a lot about running the ball more. But they never really did.
This year, the Cowboys finally are running the ball more. So much more than running back DeMarco Murray is on pace to run the ball more times than anyone ever has in a single season.
As a result, the Cowboys are now talking about giving the ball to Murray less. But they’re not doing it.
“Well there’s no doubt we look at it and there’s no doubt we’d like to get that cut back,” COO Stephen Jones told Adam Schein of SiriusXM Mad Dog Radio on Thursday. “We’ve got to get our hands around having the ball 30 minutes versus having the ball 33, 34, 35, in some cases 36 minutes, even though you are giving Joe Randle and [Lance] Dunbar some carries when you keep the ball that long. We need to even do it a little more.
“But we’re certainly aware of it. We certainly know that when you touch the ball that many times you are exposing DeMarco to a difficult hit or something like that. So we’re aware of it. We want to do better in terms of reducing his touches. Not by a ton but you’d like to see him get it less than 30 times a game. Between his receiving and running I think he’s in the 35-36 range. So we would like to get that down.”
Technically, Murray’s workload currently is under 30 touches per games; he’s a 29.8. Still, he had only 17 per game for his career before 2014, and he never stayed healthy with that more limited workload.
So maybe the goal should be to get Murray under 25 touches per game. If they don’t, it’s just a matter of time before Murray won’t be able to manage one touch for one or more consecutive games.