Running Away

DeMarco Murray's price tag goes up with every yard he gains for Dallas

As good as DeMarco Murray's numbers look so far this season, there's a bitter sweetness to the stat sheet. That’s because with every yard Murray gains, the odds of his remaining a Dallas Cowboy beyond this season decline in proportion.

Sure, it’s great to see the Cowboys finally buy into the running game. Yes, Murray is running “angry,” as one Fox broadcaster put it. After his 100-yard effort against the St. Louis Rams on Sunday, Murray became the third back in team history to have three straight 100-yard rushing games to start the season. (The other two were Tony Dorsett, 1981, and Emmitt Smith, 1995.) You have to like that company.

Murray has now proved that, when healthy, he’s one of the league’s few three-down backs. He can run. He can catch passes. He can pick up the blitz. You don’t have to take him off the field if you don’t want to, although given Murray’s injury history it wouldn’t be a bad idea on occasion.

Murray is playing like a man who knows he can cash in next offseason.

So for now Murray, is the focal point of this Cowboys offense, which is strange to see and strange to say. If this were 1999, when running backs ruled NFL offenses, the massive contract extension that owner and general manager Jerry Jones shoveled toward left tackle Tyron Smith a couple of months ago would have been Murray’s. Or, we’d be talking about the Cowboys using the franchise tag next season on Murray instead of wide receiver Dez Bryant.

So why is Murray the odd man out? Money and the 21st century NFL, where passers and receivers rule.

Murray is playing like a man who knows he can cash in next offseason. This is the final year of his rookie contract. Put yourself in his shoes. Would you rather stay in Dallas or test the free-agent waters? Not an easy choice, especially given Jones’ track record as a general manager. Do you really trust Jones to keep accumulating the talent needed to get the Cowboys out of mediocrity?

Let’s say Murray wanted to stay. Now it comes down to money. Does Murray fit into the budget? Right now the Cowboys have $136.5 million committed to the 2015 salary cap. That includes Smith’s extension, which made him the highest-paid tackle in the game.

The 2014 NFL salary cap is $133 million. Last year the cap went up about $10 million. Many assume that the 2015 cap will go up at least $10 million, which would be about $143 million. Profootballtalk.com reported that according to NFL sources the cap could be $145 million in 2015 and $160 million in 2016.

Either way, you see the problem. Even if the 2015 cap is $145 million, right now the Cowboys only have about $9 million to play with. Sure, they can move some money around. But it’s going to take about $20 million — at least — to keep Bryant and Murray on the same team. The Cowboys seem to value Bryant more, thus the speculation around him and not Murray regarding a long-term deal or the franchise tag.

That’s the other issue. The passing game rules the NFL these days, and backs are considered more interchangeable. (That’s a better word than disposable.)

Even a back as talented as Murray is less valued when the Cowboys have two young backs on the roster. In 2015 Joseph Randle could handle the running and Lance Dunbar could handle the pass-catching. Don’t put it past Jones and company to go to a platoon.

Blame it on Bill Belichick, who has for the past decade shuttled backs in an out of an offense built around quarterback Tom Brady and a large group of receivers. Now everyone wants to do it because the Patriots won three Super Bowls doing it.

It may be that attitude, more than anything, that costs Murray a big deal in Dallas. With each passing yard, the price tag goes up.

unspecified

Basketball News

Cooper Flagg is the new Maine man for the Dallas Mavericks

Getty Images

Cooper Flagg, newest Dallas Mavericks pick

Cooper Flagg is the new Maine man in Dallas. The Mavericks took the Duke forward with the No. 1 pick in the NBA draft on June 25, hoping they have found their next franchise superstar less than five months after trading one away.

Mavericks fans were furious when Dallas traded Luka Doncic to the Los Angeles Lakers on February 1, some immediately threatening to end their support of the team.

But the ones who stuck around may quickly love Flagg, the college player of the year who averaged 19.2 points and 7.5 rebounds while leading Duke to the Final Four. The Mavericks quickly announced that Flagg would wear No. 32 in Dallas, where fellow Duke products Kyrie Irving and Dereck Lively II are on the roster.

“I’m really excited. I think I keep saying I’m excited to be a sponge, to get down there and just learn, be surrounded by Hall of Fame-caliber guys and just to be able to learn from them,” Flagg said. “It’s going to be an incredible experience.”

His selection — considered likely ever since Flagg showed off his considerable game last summer after being invited to the U.S. Olympic team's training camp — was a daylong celebration in his home state for the 18-year-old forward from Newport, Maine.

“It means a lot to me to have the support of the whole state. I know how many people showed up today and supported me at some of the draft parties back home,” Flagg said. “It feels amazing knowing I can inspire younger kids. I was in their shoes really not that long ago, so just to know I can give those kids those feelings and have the whole state behind me, it means a lot.”

Basketball up-and-comer Cooper FlaggGetty Images

The backstory
Dallas Mavericks CEO Rick Welts wasn't thinking even for a second about Cooper Flagg when he started a staff meeting before the draft lottery by saying the club was entering the most important offseason in franchise history.

The longtime NBA executive and relatively new leader on the business side of the Mavs was thinking about the lingering fallout of the widely reviled Luka Doncic trade, not the club turning a 1.8% chance into winning the rights to draft the teenaged star from Duke.

“Never, ever did anybody in our organization ever even say what would happen if we win. That's a waste of time,” Welts told The Associated Press recently. “Like, it's unbelievable. It was hard to even get your head around.”

The self-inflicted wounds were numerous after general manager Nico Harrison's stunning decision to send Doncic to the Los Angeles Lakers for Anthony Davis in early February.

Fans were incensed. Season-ticket holders were canceling. Potential new sponsors were telling Welts they'd have to think about it.
Just like that, the Mavs had a vision to sell of a potential superstar who could someday be the face of the franchise — as Doncic was, and fellow European superstar Dirk Nowitzki before him. Just like that, despair turned to hope for plenty of people, including those under Welts who had spent weeks dealing with the wrath of a spurned fan base.

Before the Doncic trade, Welts had already made a decision to raise season-ticket prices. He told the AP he had to back off on the size of the increase as he watched the visceral reaction unfold.

Welts has seen plenty in nearly 50 years with the NBA, including time in the league office and stints with Phoenix and Golden State. That's not to say the Doncic fallout didn't have a profound impact on the 72-year-old Welts, who had come out of retirement to replace Cynt Marshall just a month and a half earlier. It just means he has weathered a few storms.

And now the Naismith Basketball Hall of Famer isn't so sure he's ever seen the sun come back out so quickly.

“The thing that I learned through all of this experience was what I knew was like this amazing emotional tie between this team and these fans was even stronger than I think anybody who hadn’t lived here and been a part of it could ever imagine,” Welts said. “Just the outpouring of pure joy and the idea of a generational player that could change our fortunes for the next 15 years would land with us by pure luck.”

Part of what made the Doncic deal so hard to believe was unloading a 25-year-old superstar in his prime nine months after leading Dallas to the NBA Finals for the first time in 13 years. The Mavs lost to Boston in five games last June.

Harrison's reasoning was prioritizing defense, and his belief that Davis and Irving were a good enough tandem to keep Dallas as a championship contender. Flagg's potential gave that notion a boost.

“I feel like I’m a broken record, but the team that we intended to put on the floor, which you guys saw for 2 1/2 quarters, that’s a championship-caliber team,” Harrison said. “And so you might not like it, but that’s the fact, it is.”

Welts, who believes the Mavs have work to do to bring their basketball and business sides together, will spend plenty of time during the early days of the Flagg era sharing his vision for a new arena.

It's a big reason Welts took the job, after spending seven years with Golden State on an arena plan that moved the Warriors across the bay to San Francisco from Oakland. He says all the talks are focused on keeping the team in Dallas.

While the casino-centered Adelson and Dumont families of Las Vegas, in the middle of their second full year as owners of the Mavs, wanted gambling to be part of the formula for a new arena, the political realities in Texas have shifted the focus away from that idea for now.

There's a new focus for Welts in what seems certain will be the final stop in an eventful NBA career: building everything around another potentially generational star after the Mavs jettisoned the one they had.

“Don't make this sound like I'm suggesting that everyone is forgiven,” Welts said. “Luka will always be a big part of what this organization is. But for a large number of fans, it is a pathway — it's not a pathway, it's like a four-lane highway into being able to care about the Mavericks the way they cared about the Mavericks before.”

celebrities sports