NASHVILLE, Tenn. -- The Tennessee Titans have indicated they will be free-agent shoppers and they certainly should be.

Their needs far surpass what they will be able to address in their 2015 draft class.

But with a high salary cap, teams are more determined and more able to hold on to their own quality players with new contracts and their franchise tag.

The Dallas Cowboys are going to have to sort out the status of receiver Dez Bryant and running back DeMarco Murray.

ESPN’s resident scout Matt Williamson looks at the seven best landing spots for Murray, and puts the Titans second behind only Dallas.

"The Titans made Bishop Sankey the first running back selected in last year's NFL draft by taking him with the No. 54 overall pick. That didn't work out so well for several reasons. Shockingly, the Titans were reluctant to just hand the job over to Sankey, even late in his rookie season, when they really should have been in evaluation mode. But maybe that's all we really need to know about their feelings for Sankey, who finished the year with just 152 carries. Even entering the league, few considered Sankey a workhorse-type back. The remainder of the Tennessee depth chart is very thin. With either Zach Mettenberger or a first-round rookie quarterback likely in charge of the Titans' offense, this team absolutely will need a running game and a back such as Murray to hand the ball to over and over."

But Murray carried 436 times in the regular season plus playoffs in 2014.

Running back production virtually always dips in the season after a workload of at least 370 carries, something you can read more about in this Football Outsiders piece by Aaron Schatz from back in 2007.

The Titans had their first choice of running back last year, and through one year their pick of Sankey looks bad. Maybe they draft another. Cincinnati went with second-round running backs in back-to-back years with Giovani Bernard and Jeremy Hill, and it worked out well. But the Titans don't have the luxury of spending more picks on spots they've already addressed.

Maybe the Titans go forward with what they have, keyed by Sankey, Dexter McCluster and Antonio Andrews. (I can’t see Shonn Greene back.)

I refer often to how good running backs can be found in the middle and late rounds of the draft (Alfred Morris was a sixth-rounder; Justin Forsett and Ahmad Bradshaw were seventh-rounders), or even as undrafteds (Arian Foster).

But that storyline is overplayed. Scan through this list and see just how poor the hit rate is for mid- and low-round running backs.

The hit rate is far better higher, just like at most positions.

If the Titans turned out to have missed on Sankey, that’s a major problem.

Finding another guy to carry at least part of the load won't be easy. But chasing Murray, if he comes free, would be rife with risk.