DeMarco Murray And The Biggest Year-To-Year Rushing Declines

by Chase Stuart on March 5, 2016

Yesterday, Bob Ford wrote DeMarco Murray and, how his 2014 season stands out as a career outlier. Today, I want to look at where it stands among the biggest year-to-year declines.

I looked at all players who rushed for at least 5 games in consecutive years, and rushed for at least 60 yards per game in the first season. For example, Murray rushed for 1,845 yards in 2014, an average of 115.3 yards per game. Last year, in 15 games, Murray averaged only 46.8 rushing yards per game. That’s a dropoff of 68.5 rushing yards per game, which is the second most in NFL history. The first? That honor goes to Lee Suggs.

Suggs was a star at Virginia Tech, rushing for 27 touchdowns in 11 games as a sophomore at Virginia Tech before tearing his ACL as a junior. In his senior year, he had another great season, rushing for 1,325 yards and 22 touchdowns. He was a 4th round pick of the Browns in 2003, where he served as the team’s backup. In ’04, he stole the job from William Green, and rushed for over 100 yards in each of Cleveland’s final three games. He averaged 74.4 rushing yards per game in ’04, but lost his job to Reuben Droughns in ’05. As a result, Suggs saw his average decline by 72.5 yards per game, an even more dramatic dropoff than Murray.

Rk	Running Back	Year	Yr N G	Yr N Rush YD	Yr N Rush Yd/G	N+1 G	Yr N+1 Rush Y	Yr N+1 Rush Yd/G	Diff
1	Lee Suggs	2004	10	744	74.4	8	15	1.9	72.5
2	DeMarco Murray	2014	16	1845	115.3	15	702	46.8	68.5
3	Tony Canadeo	1949	12	1052	87.7	12	247	20.6	67.1
4	Bull Karcis	1937	6	513	85.5	11	212	19.3	66.2
5	John David Crow	1960	12	1071	89.3	8	192	24.0	65.3
6	Charles White	1987	15	1374	91.6	12	323	26.9	64.7
7	Aaron Hayden	1995	6	470	78.3	11	166	15.1	63.2
8	O.J. Simpson	1973	14	2003	143.1	14	1125	80.4	62.7
9	Clem Daniels	1967	9	575	63.9	9	37	4.1	59.8
10	Earl Campbell	1983	14	1301	92.9	14	468	33.4	59.5
11	Hugh McElhenny	1954	6	515	85.8	12	327	27.3	58.6
12	Travis Henry	2003	15	1356	90.4	10	326	32.6	57.8
13	Ollie Matson	1959	12	863	71.9	12	170	14.2	57.8
14	Scottie Graham	1993	7	488	69.7	16	207	12.9	56.8
15	Pete Johnson	1983	11	763	69.4	16	205	12.8	56.6
16	Mike Anderson	2005	15	1014	67.6	16	183	11.4	56.2
17	Beattie Feathers	1934	11	1004	91.3	8	281	35.1	56.1
18	Pete Layden	1948	9	576	64.0	12	96	8.0	56.0
19	Preston Carpenter	1956	12	756	63.0	12	86	7.2	55.8
20	Ron Johnson	1973	12	902	75.2	11	218	19.8	55.3
21	Swede Hanson	1934	11	805	73.2	11	209	19.0	54.2
22	Garrison Hearst	2003	12	768	64.0	7	81	11.6	52.4
23	Frank Akins	1945	10	797	79.7	6	166	27.7	52.0
24	Ryan Torain	2010	10	742	74.2	9	200	22.2	52.0
25	John Grigas	1944	9	610	67.8	10	160	16.0	51.8
26	Marcus Allen	1985	16	1759	109.9	13	759	58.4	51.6
27	Ladell Betts	2006	16	1154	72.1	16	335	20.9	51.2
28	Raymont Harris	1997	13	1033	79.5	8	228	28.5	51.0
29	Eddie Price	1952	11	748	68.0	12	206	17.2	50.8
30	Cleveland Gary	1992	16	1125	70.3	15	293	19.5	50.8
31	Mike Anderson	2000	16	1487	92.9	16	678	42.4	50.6

So, is there any hope for Murray to turn things around? I looked at how all of those running backs then fared in Year N+2 (excluding those inactive during that year). I’ve sorted those backs in reverse chronological order. Let’s use Ladell Betts as an example. He averaged 72.1 rushing yards per game in 2006, then 20.9 the following year. In 2008, he rushed for just 206 yards in 13 games, a 15.8 rushing yards per game average. So Betts is an example of a player doing even worse in year three, rather than having some sort of regression to the mean.

Running Back	Year	Yr N Rush Yd/G	Yr N+1 Rush Yd/G	N+2 G	N+2 Rush Yd	N+2 Rush Yd/G	Diff
Ryan Torain	2010	74.2	22.2	2	0	0.0	-22.2
Ladell Betts	2006	72.1	20.9	13	206	15.8	-5.1
Mike Anderson	2005	67.6	11.4	8	62	7.8	-3.7
Lee Suggs	2004	74.4	1.9	5	26	5.2	3.3
Travis Henry	2003	90.4	32.6	10	335	33.5	0.9
Mike Anderson	2000	92.9	42.4	15	386	25.7	-16.6
Aaron Hayden	1995	78.3	15.1	14	148	10.6	-4.5
Scottie Graham	1993	69.7	12.9	16	406	25.4	12.4
Cleveland Gary	1992	70.3	19.5	2	11	5.5	-14.0
Marcus Allen	1985	109.9	58.4	12	754	62.8	4.4
Earl Campbell	1983	92.9	33.4	16	643	40.2	6.8
O.J. Simpson	1973	143.1	80.4	14	1817	129.8	49.4
Ron Johnson	1973	75.2	19.8	14	351	25.1	5.3
John David Crow	1960	89.3	24.0	14	751	53.6	29.6
Ollie Matson	1959	71.9	14.2	14	181	12.9	-1.2
Preston Carpenter	1956	63.0	7.2	12	2	0.2	-7.0
Hugh McElhenny	1954	85.8	27.3	12	916	76.3	49.1
Eddie Price	1952	68.0	17.2	12	555	46.3	29.1
Tony Canadeo	1949	87.7	20.6	12	131	10.9	-9.7
Pete Layden	1948	64.0	8.0	10	0	0.0	-8.0
John Grigas	1944	67.8	16.0	11	426	38.7	22.7
Bull Karcis	1937	85.5	19.3	10	93	9.3	-10.0
Swede Hanson	1934	73.2	19.0	12	359	29.9	10.9
Beattie Feathers	1934	91.3	35.1	12	350	29.2	-6.0
		0.0	0.0			0.0	0.0
Average		81.6	24.1	11.3	371.2	28.9	4.8

On average, these running backs averaged 82 rushing yards per game in Year N, 24 yards per game in Year N+1, and then just 29 rushing yards per game in Year N+2. There are a few positive examples Murray supporters could look to: O.J. Simpson sandwiched historically dominant seasons in ’73 and ’75 around a just pretty good year in ’74. But there are fewer bounce-back seasons than you might otherwise expect.

Tagged as: DeMarco Murray

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