DeMarco Murray is on pace to carry the ball 394 times this season, which would shatter his previous career-high for carries in a season — a mark he's already eclipsed.
With three regular-season games remaining before what they hope is a postseason appearance, the Cowboys have no plans of trying to save Murray for the postseason or for next season, said owner and general manager Jerry Jones.
“Every down, every possession, every first down has Super Bowl meaning to it, as though you were in the Super Bowl game itself,” the Cowboys owner and general manager told reporters on Wednesday after NFL meetings at the Four Seasons Resort & Club at Las Colinas. “We’re not saving anything for anything.”
It's the right call by Jones and the Cowboys, as the shelf life for an NFL running back is not long with the general idea being you try to get as much out of them as you can before they're sent off to pasture, so to speak.
It's a tough business, but it's the reality for the Cowboys and Murray, and by all accounts, Murray wants nothing to do with a break either.
“The guy’s amazing,” Cowboys chief operating officer Stephen Jones said in The Dallas Morning News after the league meetings. “You would feel like DeMarco played under Bill [Parcells], because you don’t ever see [Murray asking for a breather]. As a matter of fact, the opposite. If you try to do something for him, he refuses. It’s well deserved. Certainly we’ve got three games left to go, but all you have to do is watch the games and watch the guy.
“He’s been a warrior and a workhorse and certainly when you’ve got a good horse and he’s working like he is, you ride the horse.”
