Last season, DeMarco Murray and Dez Bryant were the stalwarts of the Dallas Cowboys. In the offseason, Jerry Jones had a lot of decisions to make about how to budget his offense. Bryant stayed. Murray left via free agency and landed with the hated Philadelphia Eagles. Now, the two will be back on the same field, though they'll be on opposite sides of this game and will be pitted against each other for fantasy football matchup purposes at BookMaker.eu.
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To say that both of these men are huge wild cards is an understatement.
We'll start with Bryant, a man who has only played in one game since returning from a broken foot suffered back in Week 1. In that game against Seattle, he managed just two catches for 12 yards. He wasn't able to get out of breaks all that cleanly, and he wasn't able to be on the field for the majority of the snaps as he is used to.
The argument could be made that another week of practice will help, and it will certainly be easier going against the Eagles' secondary than it was going against Richard Sherman. Remember that Sherman floated last week, which isn't normal for him. Instead of keeping him on the right side of the field as it normally the case, Sherman went anywhere that Bryant went, and that kept him in check when he was on the field.
However, in practicality, we just don't think Bryant is healthy yet, and seeing him catch more than four or five balls and getting beyond 50 yards just doesn't seem plausible.
If that turns out to be the case, it's all about whether we're going to see the Murray who ran all over defenses last year for the Cowboys or the one who had 13 carries for two yards against Dallas back in Week 2.
To his credit, Murray has had at least 18 carries in three consecutive games for the Eagles, raising his usage quite a bit. Remember if he gets 20 carries, that's the same as Bryant having five receptions per BookMaker's scoring. If Murray does get 20 carries, it's tough to imagine that he isn't going to have at least 50 yards, even after the dud in Week 2.
Murray is also a reasonable contributor in the Philadelphia passing game as well. Sam Bradford still checks down a lot to the various Eagles running backs, and Murray has 23 catches for 132 yards and a TD as a receiver this year.
There are a couple bones of contention, though, the biggest of which is the fact that Ryan Mathews has seemingly been taking on a bigger and bigger role these last several weeks as well. Murray wasn't the man on the field late on against the Panthers two weeks ago in the backfield; Mathews was.
The other problem we see for Murray is that he isn't being used at the goal line all that much. Yes, he has three rushing touchdowns, but all too often, it's either Mathews or Darren Sproles who ends up getting the call down near the end zone.
That's where Bryant is still dangerous. The Cowboys have badly been missing a red zone receiving threat without No. 88 in the lineup. Matt Cassel isn't the greatest quarterback ever, but he's a lot more capable than Brandon Weeden ever was as we see it.
Though Bryant may only get 30 snaps or so, those snaps could be tremendously effective for fantasy purposes if the Cowboys get down near the end zone. No man on this planet fights for a 50/50 ball in the end zone like Dez Bryant. He's going to be an underdog against Murray, and he's surely going to get outdone in yards, but we still prefer the Dallas wide out against the Philadelphia secondary for fantasy football purposes.
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