NAPA – Latavius Murray had 307 touches last season, the highest sum of his football career.

That’s a quantum leap from the total taken in two previous professional seasons, when he was either injured, locked in a reserve role or busting onto the scene.

The number's split over 266 carries and 41 receptions, and ranked among the NFL’s highest totals last season.

Most all of them included at least one hit or a full-blown tackle. All that contact can be a grind. So can experiencing each one of them over again.

Murray replayed every touch at least once, dissecting his technique and decision making in search of ways to be more efficient in the future. It wasn’t fun analyzing details of actions that happen in a flash.

It was required after those 307 touches produced a disappointing sum. 1,066 yards rushing, 232 yards receiving and six touchdowns. In three words: not good enough.

Murray spent this offseason figuring out how to be more efficient and better prepared for another overtime shift.

“I’m never satisfied, and I certainly wasn’t last year,” Murray said in an interview with CSNBayArea.com. “Having 1,000 yards was great but, after watching all my carries and seeing yards left out there, I wonder just how good a year I could’ve had. I know I left too much out there on the field. I want to have a perfect year, but it obviously doesn’t work that way. That doesn’t mean I won’t strive for it.”

The Raiders are striving to be far better than the 91.1 yards per game produced last season. They want to run well and run often, even when a defense knows what’s coming. While they drafted impressive fifth-rounder DeAndre Washington to help shoulder the load, that doesn’t necessarily mean Murray’s touches will decrease.

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“I want to have more rushes. I don’t want him to have less,” head coach Jack Del Rio said. “If anything, maybe a little more, but I want him to be more productive. We want other guys to be involved and be able to run it as well. We’re working on becoming a team that’s capable of running the ball well. We never really, truly established that last year. It had to be good numbers for us to be able to run it well. We want to be able to run it well, period, whether the numbers are good or not.”

Murray is capable of doing better. He stands 6-foot-3, 230 pounds, with surprisingly agile feet. Running backs coach Bernie Paramlee says Murray understands blocking schemes and can be a capable receiver, that he’s a hard worker who “doesn’t feel like he’s arrived.”

That was apparent during the offseason, when he took no issue with tearing his runs apart.

“When you self scout, you look at what you did well and what you didn’t do right,” Parmalee said. “As runners, there are times where you realize you missed a cut that could’ve provided extra yards. The next step is important, when you understand why. It’s about knowing blocking schemes and pad levels and how the opposition likes to play. You have to trust what you see and how we’re going to execute up front. When we’re watching film in OTAs, I want him to tell me what he sees. That makes things a lot clearer. He has improved tremendously on that front.”

Murray is a smarter player for last year’s experience and this offseason’s breakdown. Reviewing carries is common, but having a large library certainly helped evaluate every situation and how he can be improve. Efficiency is central in Murray’s mind. He wants to gain more yards per carry, absorb fewer big hits and be prepared to grind out yards when the first two objectives are not met.

That means being a punisher at times, using size to his advantage. Murray has worked to be in the best possible shape, to better weather a season and be more productive in crunch time.

“At times, I felt it. It’s a long season, and there was some tough sledding at times,” Murray said. “It may wear on you, but I want another heavy workload. I know I can handle it. I know what I need to do to be stronger later in the year and later in games. I’m excited about the opportunity ahead.”