When the Eagles signed DeMarco Murray to a five-year contract in the offseason, nobody could have imagined a thought of cutting him. With reports surfacing left and right regarding the defending rushing champ and his playing time, those thoughts have crossed the minds of many. Murray isn't nearly as explosive as he was in Dallas and he only got 14 carries out of the 60 plays the Eagles ran on Sunday in New England.
The big storyline surrounding Murray has been the alleged meeting he had with team owner Jeff Lurie about his unhappiness with the amount of carries that he got against the Patriots. Chip Kelly addressed the "meeting" between the two in his press conference on Wednesday, downplaying the significance of it.
Yeah, that's not what happened. He sat next to Mr. Lurie on the plane on the ride home. They were both sitting in first class and talked about the game and what happened with it. And then I've talked to DeMarco since then.
He didn't go and request a meeting with the owner; I don't know where that came from or how it was. But all of our players sit in first class when we travel, and when Mr. Lurie travels with us he sits in first class, so they were sitting next to each other.
Murray rushed for 1,845 yards last season on 392 carries, good for an average of 4.7 yards per carry. This season with Philadelphia, DeMarco has just 569 yards on 163 carries, for an average of 3.5 yards per carry. Many fans have been critical of how Chip Kelly's offense hasn't played to Murray's strength, which is running under center, but as our very own Patrick Causey points out, his production wasn't affected last season when it came to lining up in the shotgun. This year, as Pat points out, Murray's average yards per carry out of the gun is well ahead of under center, even with less opportunity.
While he ran under center much more frequently in 2014, there was no drop in production. pic.twitter.com/EuTwurT7tG
— Patrick Causey (@InsdeTheHuddle) December 9, 2015
How about running under center versus shotgun? Murray is actually doing better from shotgun this year pic.twitter.com/6QNVN6K4Nw
— Patrick Causey (@InsdeTheHuddle) December 9, 2015
The majority of Chip Kelly's press conference revolved around DeMarco Murray and his displeasure with his role. Kelly went on to say that Murray hadn't approached him regarding his issues with playing time prior to the Patriots game, but later said that DeMarco had indeed come to him about his carries frustrations at one point and he was told that both Darren Sproles and Kenjon Barner were going to play more.
He expressed disappointment to me before that. He wasn't happy with his amount of carries, and rightly so. I think everybody wants to carry the ball in every game, so that's not a — I mean —
He knew going into the game that we were going to play and we had a plan, and we knew exactly what we were going to do. We were going to have [RB] Darren [Sproles] and [RB] Kenjon [Barner] play more, and he knew that going into the game.
If the Eagles continue to utilize Murray as they have been, there could be a chance they cut him, but in that case, they'd likely have to pony up a large amount of money in order to justify that move.
