One of the talking points out of Saturday’s victory over Cincinnati was the benching of DeMarco Murray by Jason Garrett after the running back put the ball on the ground in the first quarter. It seemed to annoy Murray quite a bit and it certainly has helped fill some segments of radio as we discuss the relative authority demanded and distributed by the Cowboys’ coach. We discussed how Garrett is growing into his role recently, and this did not hurt that development one bit.

The DeMarco Murray story – as we hit year 3 already – is an interesting one to say the least. He has been billed as a fantastic heir to the running back throne in Dallas which Tony Dorsett and Emmitt Smith once ruled. Whether he is close to that quality remains to be seen in more than short bursts, but it is easy to see how he can make people forget Troy Hambrick, Felix Jones, and Tashard Choice.

Now, he has to prove that he is more than Julius Jones, 2004 or Marion Barber, 2007 – which is, a fantastic start to a career, but that proved to be the high-water mark rather than a sign of things to come.

Babe Laufenberg had quite interesting numbers on the broadcast on Saturday night about the falloff of the numbers from DeMarco Murray since his November 2011 which set his bar very, very high.

In fact, the numbers are actually quite interesting to look at between Julius Jones and DeMarco.

First, Murray as we separate his first 100 carries from the rest.

DEMARCO MURRAY





Attempts Yards YPA 10+ Runs Runs for Loss 1-100 674 6.74 17 18 next 225 886 3.9 15 71

And now, let’s turn back the clock on Julius Jones in what is relatively the same two samples from 2004 and 2005:

JULIUS JONES





Attempts Yards YPA 10+ Runs Runs for Loss 1-98 445 4.5 12 24 next 219 797 3.6 20 49