As much as I like what I’m hearing out of Oakland’s camp, there’s something in my gut telling me to stay away from Latavius Murray in 2015. People are mesmerized by his sheer stature. At 6-foot-3 and 225lbs of pure muscle he does a great Adrian Peterson impression. Doesn’t hurt that he runs a sub 4.40 40-yard dash. A perfectly sized, prototypical running back with elite speed, what’s not to like?
Well besides Murray’s 90-yard touchdown run last season against Kansas City, the Raiders back was pretty mediocre. I don’t want to take the homerun for granted, but without it, his 5.2 yards per carry drops to 4.1 and his ADP probably drops from 44th overall to around 65, maybe 70 due to uncertainty. In my opinion, there’s still plenty of uncertainty swirling around the third year back from Central Florida. It’s easy to envision Murray as a three-down workhorse given his unique blend of size, speed and the generous situation in Oakland, but when you look deeper there are a lot of red flags.
Fantasy owners have a nack for disregarding a player’s ability to handle a full workload. It’s hard to stay healthy when you’re getting hit by 250lb linebackers 20-25 times a game for 16 straight weeks. Literally, only a handful of players in the league can do it. For example, let’s look at Montee Ball, Darren McFadden, C.J. Spiller, Felix Jones… the list goes on.
What’s important here is that the average fake footballer is probably unaware of Murray’s thorough injury history. He tore his ACL during his 2009 college season, but we’ll give him the benefit of the doubt because that was more than five years ago. After being taken by the Raiders in the sixth round of the 2013 NFL Draft, Murray fractured his ankle forcing him to miss his entire rookie season. In Week 12 of last season, after rushing for 112 yards on just four carries against the Chiefs, the SPARQ freak was sidelined with a concussion. The injury risk of Murray’s draft position shouldn’t be taken lightly.
As you can see here, NumberFire put together a nice little chart exposing the success, or lack thereof, for unproven sophomore running backs. It’s a simple case of “easier said than done”.
But let’s dive a bit deeper into the numbers. Murray is a big back by any standard, but he fails to utilize that size to his advantage. He averaged just 2.0 yards after contact, 6th worst in the NFL for any back with a minimum of 80 carries, and just a single spot ahead of Darren McFadden, aka Walk DMC. Instead, he’d rather run east to west, using a one-cut style of running. That’s great and all, except Murray isn’t elusive either. He’s almost allergic to making guys miss. Pro Football Focus breaks down rushers beyond the point of being helped by blockers. When graded out, Murray was second to last in the entire NFL in terms of elusiveness rating for any rushers with at least 75 carries. Only Isaiah Crowell graded out worse. On Murray’s 82 carries, he made a total of six tacklers miss, or on 7% of his rushes. He runs straight up too often and isn’t shifty in the open field. If you’re not a power back, or you can’t make guys miss in the NFL, there’s usually not a successful tenure in your future.
While I fully expect Murray to beat out Trent Richardson for the starting job, Roy Helu will almost definitely take over on third down plays and in the majority of passing situations. Helu’s quietly been one of the most efficient third down backs in the NFL over his four year career. He’s also a bit underrated as a runner, posting a career 4.4 yards per carry. While it’s unlikely at this point, there are whispers out of Raiders camp that Helu could eventually push Murray for the starting job if things don’t go well.
The Raiders as a team are on the up and up, in theory. Derek Carr should be more comfortable in his second season under center as they added outside weapons Amari Cooper, and Michael Crabtree who I’m hesitant to actually call a weapon. Murray will have every chance to breakout in 2015, but he’ll still be running behind a below average offensive line, 21st in run blocking according to PFF. So, if you want to blame any lack of success on the line last year, you can, but it’s not going to be significantly better in 2015.
The way I see it, Murray’s unproven and isn’t actually as effective or dangerous as people might presume. Right now, the over/under on Oakland’s 2015 win total in Vegas is 5.5, so they expect the team to be trailing a whole lot. With Helu penciled in as the team’s third down passing catching back, he’ll probably get a lot more snaps than people realize. Murray might also win the goal line gig, but that doesn’t mean he’s going to get a lot of shots at it as the Raiders ranked dead last in both rushing yards per game (77.6) and rushing touchdowns (4). Honestly, how the fuck do you score a total of four rushing touchdowns all season? As a team the Raiders attempted just 21 rushes inside the opponent’s 10-yard line, two of which went for touchdowns, averaging 0.8 yards per attempt. For perspective, the Jaguars, the only team to score less total points than the Raiders in 2014, had just three less rushing attempts (18) inside the opponent’s 10, converting seven of them into touchdowns on 1.6 ypc average.
I won’t argue that Murray’s fantasy ceiling is that of a top-10 back. But, people are overlooking what could go wrong here. Given the Raiders putrid offense, his disguised ineffectiveness and his lengthy injury history, the third-year RB is just as likely to wind up as an RB3/4 as he is an RB1.
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