Dallas Cowboys running back DeMarco Murray finished this season as the NFL's most productive running back.
He set a Cowboys franchise-record with 1,845 yards on 392 carries, added 13 touchdowns and set career-highs in receptions with 57 catches for 416 yards.
Most importantly, Murray did it all while remaining relatively healthy, managing to play in every game in a season for the first time in his career, including the final four despite dealing with a surgically repaired left hand.
But, he's an injury-prone player with a lot of miles on his body playing a position of lessening NFL importance. To hear Murray tell it, and in light of comments made by team-owner Jerry Jones last week, it all seems to amount to a bleak future for him with the Cowboys.
"Those guys know how I am as a person and I understand that business aspect," Murray said of Jones' comments, per ESPN.com. "I don't get butt-hurt. I don't get my feelings hurt. I believe in myself and what I'm capable of doing and whoever it is I'm playing for next year, I know I'm going to make a huge impact."
Murray - whose agent had short-lived contract conversations with the organization during the year - said after the season that he'd love to stay with Dallas, but after giving it some thought he knows that there are other considerations to his ultimate free agent decision.
"I've thought about a lot of things I haven't told anyone yet, not even my agent or not even my family," Murray said. "You can sit back and look at the pros and cons of many different situations and you think of yourself and think of your family in these situations."
Still Murray said, no matter what happens, he'd hold no grudges against Jones and the Cowboys.
He knows it's ultimately a business and with an already hefty payroll and another unrestricted free agent in wide receiver Dez Bryant badly in need of a payday, he understands the situation from Dallas' perspective.
Murray sounds like a guy who, though he loves the team and loves the city, knows he's not long for 'Big D.'
"When it's all said and done, no matter where I end up, 10 years, 20 years from now I definitely will consider Dallas being my home," Murray said, "and I'll probably end up raising my family there."
