During the offseason, Dallas Cowboys owner Jerry Jones brought in several former first-round picks who failed to live up to their respective draft statuses over the first few years of their careers.
One such example is linebacker Kenneth Murray Jr., who spent four years with the Los Angeles Chargers after the Bolts made him the 23rd overall pick in the 2020 draft and then spent last season with the Tennessee Titans before the Cowboys traded a sixth-round selection for him back in March.
There's no getting around the fact that Murray made a lot of tackles over his first five seasons, racking up 321 with the Chargers and another 95 with the Titans. But tackle totals are arguably the most misleading simple stat in football, especially when it comes to linebackers, as they simply don't tell the whole story of what a defender has done (or hasn't done) during the course of any given game.
Cowboys' Kenneth Murray trade predictably already looks like a mistake
For instance, if one were to only look at the box score from the Cowboys' 24-20 loss to the Philadelphia Eagles on Thursday night, you'd see that Murray tied Malik Hooker for the team lead in tackles with nine. But anyone who watched the entire game could clearly see that Murray, who surprisingly had the green dot on his helmet, was arguably the weakest defender on the Dallas defense all night long.
And that's not what you want from the guy with the seventh-highest cap hit on the roster. No, seriously, that's a thing, as the sixth-year veteran is collecting $7.41 million this season.
Seemingly well aware of Murray's overall shortcomings, the Eagles wasted little time picking on him, as Jalen Hurts completed five of his first six passes of the game to tight ends in the middle of the field. Murray also couldn't help contain Hurts as a rusher. Yes, that's a daunting task for anyone, but he looked particularly bad at times.
Attempting to contain Saquon Barkley is also a challenge, but Murray had a chance to get a little redemption from some of his earlier mistakes by making a big play on Barkley on a 2nd-and-3 in the fourth quarter, only to get completely embarrassed, as Saquon simply threw him to the ground.
It's not that Murray didn't make any nice plays, but from an overall standpoint, he didn't do much to dispel the notion that Jones made a mistake by bringing him to Dallas in the first place, earning an absolutely dreadful 30.0 overall PFF grade for his performance. Of every Cowboys defender, only Jay Toia was worse at 29.3.
What's wild is that despite his subpar performance throughout, Murray played all 62 defensive snaps for Dallas on Thursday night. Meanwhile, Marist Liufau, who many believe should've been in the starting lineup over Murray, took just six.
It'll be interesting to see how defensive coordinator Matt Eberflus handles things moving forward.