Philadelphia Eagles: LeSean McCoy Trade Was Horrendous
By Jeremy Klump
Dec 13, 2015; Philadelphia, PA, USA; Philadelphia Eagles running back
(29) looks on from the sidelines during a break in the second half against the Buffalo Bills at Lincoln Financial Field. The Eagles won 23-20. Mandatory Credit: Bill Streicher-USA TODAY Sports
RB DeMarco Murray
The Eagles obviously needed to replace McCoy after they traded him.
DeMarco Murray came into the 2015 season off of his impressive 2014 year in which he lead the NFL in rushing with 1.845 yards. He also rushed for 13 touchdowns on the year. The only problem for the Cowboys was that Murray was a free agent at the end of the season and wanted a big contract. The Cowboys offered him a contract, but not the numbers he wanted.
That left Murray testing the free agent waters and there was a certain team that was in the market for a running back.
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The Eagles decided to swoop in and offer Murray a huge free agent contract, a five-year $40 million contract with $18 million guaranteed, and took their division rivals starting running back.
It was great at the time because of the hole the Eagles had at running back from trading McCoy, but if you fast forward to present time; Murray has been an overpriced free agent who is now having trouble finding the field over three other Eagles running backs.
Last week, against the Bills, Murray played 25 snaps and had 11 carries. The week before that, against the New England Patriots, Murray played 14 snaps and only had eight carries. These numbers are alarming for sure, but add in the fact that the Eagles actually won both of those games and you can see that Murray has not been what the Eagles expected.
Murray, who was the AP Offesinve Player of the Year in 2014, has only rushed for 603 yards and four touchdowns. He is averaging 3.5 yards per carry, which has him ranked 43rd in the NFL out of the 46 players who qualify by having at least 6.25 attempts per game.
Not only has Murray been ineffective, but according to ESPN’s Ed Werder, Murray met with Eagles’ owner Jeffrey Lurie to complain about his usage after the Eagles biggest win of the season against the Patriots.
Murray has not even come close to replacing Shady and it could very well be that the Eagles need to replace Murray at the end of the year now too.
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