IRVING, Texas – As might be expected,
DeMarco Murray doesn't have much of an opinion of his carry count through the first six weeks of the season.
Only four running backs in the NFL have more than 100 carries. But with 159 total totes on the year, Murray leads the pack by far. He's got 43 more carries than the league's second-best in that category, Philadelphia's LeSean McCoy.
At his current clip, Murray is averaging 26.5 carries per game. If he keeps that up, he'll easily eclipse 400 attempts on the season, and he should even pass Larry Johnson's single-season attempts record of 416.
Murray said he hasn't been paying attention to any outside talk of whether that's too heavy a workload.
"I don't really hear it. I'm just concentrating on doing my job so I can help this team win," he said. "Whatever they ask me to do, like I've said, I'm going to do it to the best of my ability."
In Seattle on Sunday, Murray had 29 carries for the second time this season. It would have tied a career high, if not for the 31 carries he
notched in the overtime win against the Texans. With 10 games to play, he's 73 percent of the way to his carry total of 217 from last year.
Despite that, he said he feels fine physically – though he did compliment running backs coach Gary Brown for rotating in backups Joseph Randle and Lance Dunbar during the 30-23 win.
"I felt fine. I felt fine coming into the game, and I think GB did a good job of rotating us all and letting us all get a good feel for the game," he said. "Randle and Dunbar came in and did a great job for us – gave us a spark throughout the game. We've got to continue to do that and give those guys opportunities."
Randle in particular sparked the offense with 52 yards on 10 carries, more than doubling his yardage total and his carry total in the process. Dunbar had just one carry on the day, but he did add four receptions for 48 yards.
