DeMarco Murray will attempt to do something this year that very few running backs in NFL history have done: Avoid a pronounced decline following a season with a huge workload.
Murray’s 497 touches last year — including the playoffs — are sixth-most in NFL history and most in eight years. He signed with the Eagles this offseason after the Cowboys declined to re-sign him.
We used Pro-Football-Reference’s play index to find the players with the most touches in a season in NFL history. We actually took the top 21, since there’s no data yet on how Murray will respond to his heavy workload, so we took him out of the equation.
A list of the 20 other seasons with the most touches in NFL history includes 17 players. Terrell Davis, Emmitt Smith and Eddie George had two seasons in the top 20.
Of the 17 players on the list, nine — a little more than half — were never the same the rest of their career: Jamal Anderson, James Wilder, Eddie George, Thurman Thomas, Larry Johnson, Marcus Allen, Dorsey Levens, Ahman Green and Roger Craig.
Terrell Davis had one more very good year, then dropped off the map.
Edgerrin James, Emmitt Smith and Arian Foster each fell off significantly after their season in question, but were still very good players.
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John Riggins and Walter Payton don’t really apply, since they had their season with a huge number of touches near the end of their career. So they were due to dropoff anyway.
The only players who showed no sign of any long-term decline after a season with at least 460 touches were Eric Dickerson and Curtis Martin, both Hall of Famers.
Here’s the most interesting thing we found: From 1983 through 2006, a span of 24 years, 25 backs had at least 450 touches. About one per year. From 1997 through 2000, nine did.
But over the last eight years, only two have reached the figure — Foster in 2012 and Murray last year.
NFL teams seem to be realizing how risky it is to the long-term health of running backs to give them that many touches. Most offenses are pass-oriented now, and the teams that do run the ball a lot use multiple backs.
Where does Murray fit in?
The odds say he’ll drop off this year, but there have been notable exceptions, and the presence of Ryan Mathews will certainly take some pressure off him.
But history says Murray is in dangerous territory.
Let’s take a look:
531 … Terrell Davis, 1997
Davis followed his NFL-record 531-touch season with a 2,000-yard rushing season in 1998. But he played only 17 games the rest of his career and was out of the NFL before his 29th birthday.
519 … Emmit Smith, 1995
Smith averaged 1,604 yards per season and 4.6 yards per carry through 1995. He averaged 1,016 yards and 3.8 yards per carry the rest of his career.
517 … Jamal Anderson, 1998
Anderson averaged over 1,300 yards per season and 4.2 yards per carry through his 517-touch season. After that? He played just two games the next year and averaged only 424 yards and 3.5 per carry the rest of his career. Anderson was out of football before his 30th birthday.
516 … Emmit Smith, 1992
Smith’s dropoff didn’t come immediately. In 1993, a year after getting 516 touches, he ran for nearly 1,500 yards and led the NFL with 5.3 yards per carry. After that? He was never quite the same player. He averaged 4.5 through 1993 and 4.1 the rest of the way.
499 … Terrell Davis, 1998
As stated above, Davis was never close to the same player after 1998. He averaged 4.8 yards per carry and more than 1,600 yards per season through 1998 and 3.8 yards per carry and 398 yards per season after 1998.
497 … DeMarco Murray, 2014
Murray had the most carries of any player in NFL history in a season before he changed teams.
492 … James Wilder, 1984
Wilder never again approached his Pro Bowl 1984 season, when he ran for over 1,500 yards and caught 85 passes. He had about 600 fewer total yards the next year, then another 600 fewer the year after that. After netting 2,229 yards in 1984, he netted just 765 yards of offense per year the rest of his career.
488 … Eddie George, 2000
485 … Eddie George, 1999
Look what happened to the Abington native’s per-carry average after his 485-touch season: He averaged 4.0 yards per carry through 1999 and 3.4 the rest of his career.
482 … Eric Dickerson, 1983
Dickerson is the biggest exception to the trend. His 482-touch season came his rookie year, and he was still playing at a very high level six years later.
481 … Thurman Thomas, 1993
There was a clear dropoff for Thomas after his 481-touch season. He averaged 4.4 yards per carry with five seasons over 1,200 yards through 1993 and averaged 3.8 yards with no seasons over 1,100 yards the rest of his career.
476 … Walter Payton, 1984
Payton was already 30 years old when he got those 476 touches, so it’s not surprising that he only had two more big years. But he helped the Bears to the Super Bowl championship a year later and was still really good in 1986 at 32, so it’s hard to blame his inevitable dropoff in 1987 to how much he was used in 1984.
475 … Larry Johnson, 2006
Johnson’s career is a textbook case of what happens when a running back is overworked. He ran for 1,789 yards with a 4.3 average that year, but despite being only 26, he never played a full season again. Johnson averaged 4.7 yards per carry through 2006 and 3.8 yards and 403 yards per year the rest of his career.
474 … Edgerrin James, 2000
James followed his huge 2000 season with two subpar seasons, and although he did bounce back eventually with a string of very good seasons, the numbers show he was never the same after 2000.
Through that 2000 season, James averaged 4.3 yards per carry and 1,631 yards per season. His average was under 4.0 the rest of his career, and his average yards per season dropped to 998. Still very good but he was never the same.
472 … Marcus Allen, 1985
Marcus Allen had a curious career. He ran for more than 1,700 yards in his fourth season and played 12 more years and never even hit 900 yards again. But he still is a Hall of Famer. Look at his numbers:
Through 1985: 1,160 yards per season, 4.4 per carry
After 1985: 634 yards per season 3.9 yards per carry
Allen played another dozen years after his 472-touch season as a 25-year-old but was never a special player again.
471 … Curtis Martin, 1998
Martin never showed any long-term dropoff after his 471-touch season with the Jets. He played until he was 32 and actually had a higher yards-per-carry average in 1999 (4.0) than through 1998 (3.8). He ran for at least 1,000 yards in his first 10 seasons and was inducted into the Hall of Fame in his second year of eligibility.
467 … John Riggins, 1983
Riggins, like Payton, was at the end of his career when he got his 467 touches. He played two more years and was out of the league, and was a second-ballot Hall of Famer.
467 … Dorsey Levens, 1997
The only one-time Eagle other than Murray on the list, Levens was never the same after his monster 1997 season. He averaged 4.4 yards per carry through 1997 and just 3.8 the rest of his career along with 402 yards.
461 … Ahman Green, 2003
Green, Levens’ former teammate, was also never the same player after his one big season. He averaged 1,421 yards per year and 4.7 yards per carry through 2003 and 532 yards per year and 4.1 per carry his final six years. He was limited to eight games or fewer in four of his last six seasons.
460 … Arian Foster, 2012
Foster, the only player on this list other than Murray who’s still active, is still a very good back but has experienced a significant decline since his 2012 season. He was averaging 4.9 yards per carry through 2012 and is down to 4.4 since.
457 … Roger Craig, 1988
Craig through his big 1988 season, with over 1,500 rushing yards, averaged 4.4 yards per carry. He was at 3.7 the rest of his career, averaging just over 500 rushing yards.