Bills sign Latavius Murray to a one-year deal

[Shaw66]

21 minutes ago, Straight Hucklebuck said:

For Beane to cram in this many FAs with the money he had available is impressive. 

 

Say for instance the Bengals? Week one of FA they don't try to get Hurst, Bates, Bell back. Pratt signs a below-market value contract to stay in Cincinnati. They get their LT, so props there, then Perine walks, and they done hardly anything else. 

 

After Poyer, the Bills continued on getting Rapp, Anderson, Phillips, Lawson, Harris, Murray and now Ford to sign, extending Bass. The Bills have seemingly had less than $10M to spend for weeks, and they're still getting veterans to sign. 

Well, I don't follow much of anything about the other teams, but I'll take what you say about the Bengals as correct.  Chiefs always seem to have room to sign another guy.  

 

I also don't do a lot of cap analysis, although I try to keep up with where the Bills are.   But my reaction is the same as yours - Less than $10 million, but Beane keeps signing the guys he wants.  

 

I think Beane is great at his job.   He and his capologists have a multi-year plan, and he sticks to it.   It's the same with the draft picks.   I still don't know how he ended up with picks after he traded up for Kincaid, including picks for next year.   He also seems to have had his eye fixed on the comp pick for next year, too.  

 

Happy Days had the best comment.  He said Beane was "surgical" this year.   It seems like he addressed everything he wanted to address and didn't overspend.  Fans may have wanted an offensive tackle, but he and McDermott apparently saw no urgency there.  

 

Great stuff going on in Orchard Park.  

[DieHardBillsFan]

The RB competition in training camp is going to be fun to watch and track the reps.

[Straight Hucklebuck]

1 hour ago, Warriorspikes51 said:

Bills are finally getting more physical

YES. 

 

This is the weakness. 

 

I still think a lot hinges on Spencer Brown. They are taking a calculated risk there that he can make a jump. 

 

But Cook, Hines, add-in Harris and Murray, you would think there would have to be an uptick in the amount the Bills run the ball. 

 

If nothing else, can Doyle flex into the Bobby Hart role and help push the pile more as the 6th OLineman with size?

[Sierra Foothills]

On 5/1/2023 at 7:20 AM, Warriorspikes51 said:

Not even close.  Latavius is a starting caliber back. Exceptional depth signing.  Not to mention he's 6'3 230 

 

Great take and what I thought when we signed him. I've been watching football for a pretty long time.

 

I remember what Ottis Anderson did to the Bills in Super Bowl XXV... 21 carries 102 yards and a TD... and punishing Mark Kelso and others... setting a tone.

 

Some old timers might remember the running backs Chuck Muncie and George Rogers... size, speed, and toughness.

 

These are the types of backs that Latavius Murray compares to. He's really a great addition to this team.

 

[Sierra Foothills]

On 5/1/2023 at 10:37 AM, PBF81 said:

 

I don't see him making the final roster.   He brings nothing to the table that we don't already have.  33 years old too.  

.

[stlbills13]

He's still got some juice. I also think he sent a wakeup call to Cook. The Raiders suck but that's a blueprint for the rest of the season 

[Matt_In_NH]

6 hours ago, Sierra Foothills said:

On 5/1/2023 at 1:37 PM, PBF81 said:

 

I don't see him making the final roster.   He brings nothing to the table that we don't already have.  33 years old too.  

.

 

Nice callout.......Im sure 100% of your takes hit perfectly.

[CapeBreton]

Victory lap, I said Latavius still had some juice, and he does! I love seeing this guy in the red zone, he's a tank.

[Matt_In_NH]

4 minutes ago, stlbills13 said:

I also think he sent a wakeup call to Cook.

I have been seeing a lot about Cook's lack of physicality.....I think there is a misconception on what Cook can be.   Your hammers are Harris and Murray, Cook is a get in space guy.  He is among the lightest starting backs in the league, I think there are some unrealistic expectations to a degree...with Cook, you are looking for a crease and big gainer.

[SoTier]

46 minutes ago, Matt_In_NH said:

 

Nice callout.......Im sure 100% of your takes hit perfectly.

 

That's true but not every poster is as consistently negative as the poster that Sierra Foothills called out.

[Punching Bag]

45 minutes ago, Matt_In_NH said:

I have been seeing a lot about Cook's lack of physicality.....I think there is a misconception on what Cook can be.   Your hammers are Harris and Murray, Cook is a get in space guy.  He is among the lightest starting backs in the league, I think there are some unrealistic expectations to a degree...with Cook, you are looking for a crease and big gainer.

 

Cook would be better back for an OC like Chan Gailey who was excellent getting players space close to line.

[Warriorspikes51]

honestly I'd like to see more of him.  It may be tough, but they did a good job of using all 3 RB's yesterday 

[BillsUberAlles]

Have to say I really, really love the varying skill sets of the backs we have. Cook is the speed, elusive back with great hands. Murray is the power back who can catch the ball a little bit too. Harris is a nice blend of both of them and has a knack for finding space on KRs too.

 

IMHO this is the best RB room as a whole in quite some time.

[DeltaDigital]

dude was making people make "business decisions" all day. Ran with authority. Love it. 

[DapperCam]

I thought he looked good in preseason, and he looked good yesterday too. No dancing, and he always falls forward for another yard. He looks like he can do 60-40 split with Cook getting the majority.

[DrDawkinstein]

I loved the change of pace early in the game.

 

Throw a bunch of short, outside passes to get the defense running sideline to sideline. Then when they are winded punch them in the gut with Murray up the middle a few times. Then let Cook hit those outside edges for big gains.

 

Great to see Murray and Harris taking over for Josh as our power runner. And loved we executed those QB sneaks with the exact ease we should.

[Bleeding Bills Blue]

20 minutes ago, DeltaDigital said:

dude was making people make "business decisions" all day. Ran with authority. Love it. 

 

Between Murray, Knox, Kincaid, Allen, and Harris - they seem to understand the value of that.  We won't run it this much in every game, but you can still hit people on offense in the pass game with some of these guys.  

[NewEra]

1 hour ago, Matt_In_NH said:

 

Nice callout.......Im sure 100% of your takes hit perfectly.

Great job. Now you’re going to have to read a 373 paragraph novel defending this poor take.  Pick your battles.  They aren’t worth the time.  😜 

[Bleeding Bills Blue]

4 minutes ago, DrDawkinstein said:

I loved the change of pace early in the game.

 

Throw a bunch of short, outside passes to get the defense running sideline to sideline. Then when they are winded punch them in the gut with Murray up the middle a few times. Then let Cook hit those outside edges for big gains.

 

Great to see Murray and Harris taking over for Josh as our power runner. And loved we executed those QB sneaks with the exact ease we should.

 

Get their guys gassed and watch the plays happen.  

[PBF81]

1 hour ago, Matt_In_NH said:

 

Nice callout.......Im sure 100% of your takes hit perfectly.

 

LOL, ahhh, let him have his fun.  Honestly tho, crowing ovet a 6 carry for 22 yards performance, and 2 more catches for 9 yards, against an bottom defense though?   31 yards-from-scrimmage.  

 

I still say that he adds nothing significant.  Any number of dime-a-dozen RBs would have had a great game yesterday.  Our offense was fantastic.  

 

Cook on the other hand ... 

 

No complaints on any aspects of the game.  No team is perfect on any given Sunday, I'd be thrilled with that offensive performance every week.  

 

If people need to validate themselves by proving others wrong in isolated instances, hey, great.  Whatever makes 'em happy.  I'll play the part for that.  LOL  

 

 

 

 

[NewEra]

4 minutes ago, DrDawkinstein said:

I loved the change of pace early in the game.

 

Throw a bunch of short, outside passes to get the defense running sideline to sideline. Then when they are winded punch them in the gut with Murray up the middle a few times. Then let Cook hit those outside edges for big gains.

 

Great to see Murray and Harris taking over for Josh as our power runner. And loved we executed those QB sneaks with the exact ease we should.

Same.

 

Murray is my preferred RB2 💯 

 

He’s a threat running north south and brings the battering ram style that he haven’t had since the great Mike Tolbert.

He’s a great addition. 

[PBF81]

2 minutes ago, NewEra said:

Great job. Now you’re going to have to read a 373 paragraph novel defending this poor take.  Pick your battles.  They aren’t worth the time.  😜 

 

The number of people that thrive on slamming others ... 

 

Makes more of a statement about the ones doing that than anything else.  

 

Why not simply relish an all but perfect game in its aftermath.  

 

LOL  ...  People are funny.  

 

And what, when Murray has 200 rushing yards and a pair of TDs at year's end, that's going to be called "significant?"  

 

Well, OK.  

 

31 yards from scrimmage in a singular game against one of the easier Ds we'll face all season, in our home opener, which was a rout, doesn't exactly make me change my mind.   

 

It shouldn't do much for you either.  

 

 

[Matt_In_NH]

5 minutes ago, PBF81 said:

 

LOL, ahhh, let him have his fun.  Honestly tho, crowing ovet a 6 carry for 22 yards performance, and 2 more catches for 9 yards, against an bottom defense though?   31 yards-from-scrimmage.  

 

I still say that he adds nothing significant.  Any number of dime-a-dozen RBs would have had a great game yesterday.  Our offense was fantastic.  

 

Cook on the other hand ... 

 

No complaints on any aspects of the game.  No team is perfect on any given Sunday, I'd be thrilled with that offensive performance every week.  

 

If people need to validate themselves by proving others wrong in isolated instances, hey, great.  Whatever makes 'em happy.  I'll play the part for that.  LOL  

 

 

 

 

I don't agree with your assessment of Murray at all...but he is paid like a dime a dozen guy so what is your beef?  He brings size they dont have and he still seems productive.   Dont give me any stats in two games, its not enough sample size to talk about YPC.

[PBF81]

1 hour ago, Matt_In_NH said:

Nice callout.......Im sure 100% of your takes hit perfectly.

 

And BTW, think about how much time some of them spend chasing down the posts of others.  

 

¯\_(ツ)_/¯  

 

Again, whatever makes 'em happy.  I'll play the villain if it does.     

 

 

[PBF81]

1 minute ago, Matt_In_NH said:

I don't agree with your assessment of Murray at all...but he is paid like a dime a dozen guy so what is your beef?  He brings size they dont have and he still seems productive.   Dont give me any stats in two games, its not enough sample size to talk about YPC.

 

He's fine.  Gotta keep the statements in context however.  

 

Go look at the overreactions to his signing.  

 

Again, if at the end of the season he has two or three hundred rushing yards and two or three TDs, I don't think anyone's going to be matching those claims much less suggesting that he was an indispensible part of the offense.  If he weren't on the field yesterday it wouldn't have changed much in terms of the outcome.  Someone else would scored on that or the next two plays.  

 

He's a backup, that's all.  That's all he's going to be all season.  The D we played was not good, they sucked last season.  

 

He's got 48 YFS to date.  If he were to average that every two games he'll post about 400 YFS by season's end.  I doubt he'll even do that.  He's averaging 3.8 YPC on the season, which is low-end.  Granted, only two games.  

 

Either way, our offense, and therefore our team, is going to go as our offense goes, and the biggest contributing factors there are going to be the OL, which has been much better than the preseason rankings generally speaking, Diggs, Davis (who's on pace for 1,000), Kincaid, Knox, and Cook/Harris.  Allen of course too but that goes w/o saying.   

 

Reacting/over-reacting like this on a week-to-week basis is not good analysis on the season.  LOL  

 

At the end of the day, Murray's a fine backup, but a backup nonetheless.  Based on his age, almost 34, and his career 4.2 YPC history, which isn't likely to increase much at this point, his utility is limited.  If Cook and Harris were to go down, we'd be looking for a replacement, he wouldn't cut it.  There's very little NFL history to suggest otherwise. 

 

I used to like Murray a lot when he was on the Raiders.  But at 34 his role is clearly as a backup/role-playing RB.  That's not to say he won't make an exceptional play now and then, most players do.  Framing them in a singular or all but singular manner, ... LOL  

 

And who knows, for those looking for others to be wrong, hey, I could be.  But when he offers something significant over Cook/Harris in games against the better Ds that we face, then and only then will that be the case.  Who knows, maybe he'll dig up the stamina to post 1,000 yard 5.6 YPC rushing season if Cook goes down.  

 

At the end of the day, I don't care if people are happy if someone else is wrong.  I personally don't validate myself and derive any self-esteem from proving others wrong even if they are.  I also don't mind if people do that at my seeming expense.  My opinions on Murray have not wavered.  If people misunderstand them, that's on them, I don't care.    

 

Also, as I said before the game in predicting this type of offensive performance for us, on D the Jets were brutal in their season/home opener, the Raiders easy in our home-opener.  The truth as to how good our O is, and the individual players on it, will lie in how well we play the tougher defenses like Miami, NE, and Jax in the upcoming weeks.  The schedule obviously gets tougher in the second half of the season.  

I suspect that our offense continues to improve, but no, I also don't anticipate Murray being an essential part of that improvement.  As stated, how good our O ultimately is will come down to Allen/Diggs/Davis/Kincaid/Knox and Cook/Harris, and our OL in particular. 

 

Arguably the biggest positive generally speaking, to me anyway, is the high snap counts of our OL again.  While not 100% across the board, both Brown, who played well, and Torrence were both at 100%, which is incredibly encouraging.  

 

Morse at 92%, and Dawkins and McGovern both at 95% is a fantastic sign as well.  I wasn't really paying attention to the OL substitutions yesterday, but I'm gussing that Van Demark, Bates and Edwards all came in towards the end of the game to spell our seniors.  LOL  

 

Washington shouldn't be too bad next week.  The Miami game after that should reveal more as to what this team is all about.  

 

 

[Sierra Foothills]

2 hours ago, Matt_In_NH said:

Nice callout.......Im sure 100% of your takes hit perfectly.

 

You don't really understand this particular situation... but you're starting to.

 

😜

[WotAGuy]

[Just Jack]

Murray needs to go.  Need two yards for a first down, and he only get one yard. 

[LabattBlue]

I really thought they would have given Fournette a chance by now.