AP

On Sunday, Raiders running back Latavius Murray churned up 139 yards rushing in a game at Cleveland. On Monday, he visited PFT Live on NBC Sports Radio. Which presumably was at least a bit less painful.

Murray, who believes he can be a 1,000-yard rusher, didn’t hesitate when asked to identify the team’s expectations for 2015.

“To win the division,” Murray said. “We set that as our goal when this group got together as soon as when Jack [Del Rio] came in and that’s our one goal. You know, after that we have a chance to get into the playoffs and obviously try to make a run. But winning the division is the most important thing to us.”

Murray is an important piece of the offense, even though he was an afterthought in 2013, when he was the 181st pick in the draft. How many running backs were picked ahead of him?

“It was six or seven I believe,” Murray said. “Or seven or eight.”

I then told him it was actually fifteen.

“I didn’t know it was that many,” Murray said. “Yeah, fifteen. That is a lot, that’s a lot.”

They fifteen were: Gio Bernard, Le’Veon Bell, Montee Ball, Eddie Lacey, Christine Michael, Knile Davis, Johnathan Franklin, Kyle Juszczyk, Marcus Lattimore, Denard Robinson, Stepfan Taylor, Joseph Randle, Chris Thompson, ZacStacy, and Mike Gillislee.

Murray is the only one that was picked by the Raiders, which means he’s the only one who regularly plays on a dirt infield. So how does it feel to be tackled on that stuff?

“It doesn’t feel good at all,” Murray said. “We’ve played our last game in it, and I’m just gonna say I’m happy about it.”

Does that mean Murray roots for the A’s to not make the playoffs?

“No, see, I didn’t say that,” Murray said with a laugh. “But you know it just doesn’t feel good to get tackled on it. I’m sure that the defenders don’t like running on it and have to cover us on it either, so it’s a two-way street.”

The AFC West could be more than a two-team race if the Raiders can keep it up. They’re favored in Chicago on Sunday, and then they get the Broncos in Oakland for the first game of the year on a full grass field.

For the full Murray interview, click here and select the Big Name Guests tab.