Philadelphia: NFL rushing leader DeMarco Murray on Thursday inked a five-year contract with the Philadelphia Eagles, NFC East division rivals of his former team Dallas.
Murray ran 392 times for a league-best 1,845 yards and 13 touchdowns last season for the Cowboys and caught 57 passes for 416 yards, all of those statistics being career-highs for the fourth-year NFL player.
But the door was opened for Murray to depart Dallas last week, when the Cowboys opted to use their “franchise tag” on teammate Dez Bryant, who caught 88 passes for 1,320 yards and a career-high 16 touchdowns last year
That allowed the Cowboys to keep Bryant off the free agency market. The franchise tag means a player will receive a one-year contract for the average of the top-five NFL salaries at the position, which for Bryant is about $12.8 million (Dh47 million).
But Murray was able to test his value and no team prized a running back like the Eagles, who had made a deal to trade away their own star rusher, LeSean McCoy, to Buffalo.
“I felt that this was a great opportunity to win a Super Bowl,” Murray said of the move.
