(Also at UltimateFootballBlog.com)
Welcome to the Ultimate Football Blog Week Six. Power Rankings. Like most power rankings, this list is highly official and should never be doubted. If you disagree with it, you’re probably a moron.
Every year Dallas Cowboys fans tell anyone who will listen that DeMarco Murray is the best running back in the league, but he’s been chained by Jason Garrett and his pass happy offense. Last year Murray went over 1,000 yards for the first time in his career and finished 10th in rushing with 1,121 yards. He carried the ball 217 times, which ranked him 17th in the league. LeSean McCoy, the league’s leading rusher with 1,607 yards had 314 carries. If Murray had 100 more carries, it’s very likely that he would’ve surpassed McCoy and led the league in rushing.
This year Garrett has finally let Murray off the leash.
Murray has carried the ball 159 times through six games, which leads the NFL and is 53 more attempts than second place Arian Foster. He leads the league in rushing with 785 yards, over 200 yards more than second place LeVeon Bell. He’s gone over 100 yards in all six games this season and is the first player to start the season with six 100+ yard games since Jim Brown in 1958. If he continues at this pace he stands a good chance at breaking Eric Dickerson’s single season rushing record.
The only person that can slow down Murray at this point is Jason Garrett.
Even though DeMarco is carrying the ball an average of 26 times per game, he still has fresh legs thanks to Garrett not utilizing him the way he should’ve all along. When Adrian Peterson came within 8 yards of breaking Dickerson’s record in 2012, he carried the ball an average of 21 times per game. However, Peterson, who was only 27 at the time, had 1,406 NFL regular season rushing attempts and was coming off ACL and MCL surgery. Murray, currently 26, only had 542 rushing attempts coming into this season. While he’s battled injuries throughout his career, he’s never had anything as serious as Peterson and injuries are almost unpredictable, so I’ll just assume that he stays healthy for the rest of the season.
There’s a chance that Murray gets reeled back in though. The Cowboys are rolling right now and appear to be a playoff team. Garrett might want to save his top running back for a playoff push, which means cutting down the number of carries that Murray gets as the season goes along.
Also, I think it’s pretty well established that Garrett loves him some Tony Romo. And so far this year, Romo has played well. Take away the first game, when he threw three interceptions and only completed 62% of his passes, Romo has thrown 10 TDs to 2 INTs and completed 70% of his passes. Everyone knows that he’s helped out by how well Murray is running the ball, but it’s possible that Garrett’s QB crush blinds him from seeing that.
If Garrett is smart enough to realize that DeMarco Murray might actually be the best running back in the league and that the Cowboys best chance of winning every week is to give him the ball at least 22 times, there’s no telling how much he damage he can do to opposing defenses and record books.
1. Elite Quarterbacks
Most people consider Tom Brady, Peyton Manning, and Aaron Rodgers to be the three best quarterbacks in the league. Combined they threw for 862 yards, 10 TDs, and no interceptions on Sunday. Pretty impressive.
2. The Dallas Cowboys
Maybe it’s time to take this team seriously. Going to Seattle and beating the Seahawks is no easy task. But they got it done with some good defense (wasn’t their defense supposed to be the worst in the league this year?), a mistake free Romo (that fumble wasn’t his fault), and DeMarco Murray (I’ve written enough about him)
3. Return of the Cam
Last week I wrote about how Cam’s injuries have made him a better pocket passer as they’ve limited his running. This week his running wasn’t limited as he ran for 107 yards and threw for 284 yards. Cam put it all together and if it weren’t for special teams, a pass interference by Kelvin Benjamin, or a drop by Jericho Cotchery; he would’ve gotten the win.
4. T.Y. Hilton
223 yards and a touchdown. Not a bad game for Andrew Luck’s favorite target.
5. The Fake Spike
I didn’t even know that play still worked.
6. First Place Arizona Cardinals
Everyone said the Cardinals would be good, but that they wouldn’t make the playoffs because they were in the same division as the Seattle Seahawks and San Francisco 49ers. Don’t look now, but the Cardinals are in first place and Larry Fitzgerald is catching touchdown passes.
7. The Real McCoy Shady
For the first time all season, LeSean McCoy went over 100 yards rushing. And he did so with ease, carrying the ball 22 times for 149 yards. The Eagles have been a dangerous offensive team this year without McCoy contributing much. If he starts to get going, look out.
8. Julius Thomas
Peyton Manning is going to break Brett Favre’s all-time TD record within the next week or two. Julius Thomas is going to help him break that record and he might break a TD record or two of his own this season.
9. Sammie Lee Hill
For the second straight week the Jaguars defense didn’t get lit up thanks to some incompetent offense. But the Jags still lost thanks to Hill, who blocked Josh Scobee’s game-winning field goal attempt as time expired.
10. J.J. Watt Still Scoring TDs
The whole Watt vs. Luck debate is stupid, but no one can deny just how good J.J. Watt is. He scored his third TD of the season on Thursday, adding a fumble TD to his INT TD and reception TD stats. Watt has more TDs than Calvin Johnson this season.
11. The INT Battle
Kirk Cousins took sole possession of first place this week. Best quarterback in the world Teddy Bridgewater proved his rookie-ness, throwing 3 INTs and entering the INT Battle as a dark horse.
25. Just Build On This, Baby
Oakland fired their head coach and then almost beat a good San Diego Charges team. They didn’t win. But maybe they can build on this.
30. Vontaze Burfict’s Pro Wrestling Career
WWE is desperate for attention right now. Vontaze Burfict has perfected the ankle lock. Sounds like a perfect fit.
32. Geno Smith
The Jets defense actually played pretty well against the Broncos. They at least gave their offense a chance to put some points on the board. Unfortunately that offense is led by Geno Smith.
50. 4th & 35 Fake Punt
Did Eric Weddle hit the wrong button on Madden or something?
59. Matt Prater
Maybe it doesn’t matter who the Lions kicker is. He’s just going to suck.
78. Sam Bradford’s Contract
It looks like Austin Davis is the future in St. Louis since he’s actually healthy and not terrible, which means Bradford will be out the door pretty soon. At least the dude got paid.
100. A Tie
A FRIGGIN TIE?!?!?! The Panthers probably should’ve won the game in regulation and the Bengals definitely should’ve won in overtime on a last second field goal. But mistakes killed both teams and they ended up with a tie. A friggin tie.
104. The Tampa Bay Defense
The Buccaneers gave up 56 points earlier this year. They tried to outdo themselves against the Baltimore Ravens, giving up 38 points in the first half, but tightened things up in the second half to only give up 48 total points in the game.
150. Kirk Cousins Stock
If you sold your Cousins stock when he became the Redskins starter, good job on selling high. Feel free to buy it back now for 1% of what you sold it for.
200. Johnny Manziel
We gotta give Manziel credit for pushing Brian Hoyer to be a good quarterback, right? This might be the last time Manziel gets an obligatory mention because he’s quickly becoming forgotten.
222. Mr. Smith’s Go To Unemployment
Mike Smith and Lovie Smith are NFL head coaches. I’m not so sure Mike Smith and Lovie Smith should be NFL head coaches.
230. Jameis Winston
His NFL stock is plummeting because he’s an idiot off the field.
250. Thursday Night Games
So we finally had a good Thursday night game. I wouldn’t bet on that continuing.
263. Mike Williams Trade Talk
The Buffalo Bills traded a 6th round pick for Mike Williams in the off-season. So far he’s been a bust and not even good enough to play in the past week’s game. Now the Bills might trade Williams, but they are looking for the fair value. In this case, fair value would seem to be a 7th round pick.
300. Kissing Steve Cook
That’s what a tie feels like.
350. Eagles Fans
Stealing prosthetic legs for Vietnam veterans, showering other fans with trash, cheering Victor Cruz’ injury. Yup. Eagles fans.
1,000. Mike Goldberg
For some reason somebody thought it would be a good idea to have Mike Goldberg call a football game. It went exactly how you thought it would go as Goldberg didn’t understand the rules and didn’t know any of the players. Then, thinking he was still in his UFC bubble, went on twitter and cursed at people who dared criticize him. Goldberg was supposed to call another game this weekend, but got pulled due to his incompetence and twitter stupidity. Welcome to a professional organization, Mike Goldberg.
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