{"id":13286,"date":"2017-03-16T09:34:06","date_gmt":"2017-03-16T13:34:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lastwordonprofootball.com\/?p=13286"},"modified":"2017-03-16T09:35:01","modified_gmt":"2017-03-16T13:35:01","slug":"latavius-murray-signs","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/nfl\/2017\/03\/16\/latavius-murray-signs\/","title":{"rendered":"Latavius Murray Signs With the Minnesota Vikings"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>After spending the first four years with the Oakland Raiders, running back <a href=\"http:\/\/www.pro-football-reference.com\/players\/M\/MurrLa00.htm?utm_campaign=Linker&amp;utm_source=direct&amp;utm_medium=linker-\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Latavius Murray<\/a> has moved on, signing with the Minnesota Vikings. Murray was a sixth round pick in 2013, and he became the featured back of the Oakland Raiders in 2015, and rushed for over 1,000 yards. A year later, his rushing yards went down, but so did his attempts. That didn&#8217;t stop him from getting 12 touchdowns though.<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-width=\"550\" data-dnt=\"true\">\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">We have signed RB Latavius Murray (<a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/LataviusM?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">@LataviusM<\/a>).<\/p>\n<p>\ud83d\udcf0: <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/MJlzFJ4oNK\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">https:\/\/t.co\/MJlzFJ4oNK<\/a> <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/EjrfcNdmB3\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">pic.twitter.com\/EjrfcNdmB3<\/a><\/p>\n<p>&mdash; Minnesota Vikings (@Vikings) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/Vikings\/status\/842250966091075584?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">March 16, 2017<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-width=\"550\" data-dnt=\"true\">\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">Latavius Murray&#39;s deal with Minnesota is for three years, but can be voided after one season. Possible shot at free agency again in 2018.<\/p>\n<p>&mdash; Field Yates (@FieldYates) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/FieldYates\/status\/842258267220914176?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">March 16, 2017<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<h2>Latavius Murray To Sign\u00a0With Minnesota Vikings<\/h2>\n<p>Latavius Murray has a strange combination of size and speed. He&#8217;s the tallest running back in the NFL, but he&#8217;s also one of the fastest. He&#8217;s surprisingly shifty for his size, and he&#8217;s got good hands out of the backfield. On paper, Latavius Murray should be the best running back in the NFL.<\/p>\n<p>Unfortunately, he doesn&#8217;t really play to his size. Instead of running over defenders, he tries to run around them, and with a center of gravity that high, it hurts him. When Murray gets into open space, he&#8217;s unstoppable. The problem is that he doesn&#8217;t always get to open space.<\/p>\n<p>However, Latavius Murray has had strong performances as well. At a time when the Kansas City Chiefs weren&#8217;t giving up 100 yard rushers, Murray had 112 yards on four carries. Just last year, Murray was a crucial part of a bruising beatdown against the Denver Broncos. Running backs are a dime a dozen, but few are as complete as Murray is.<\/p>\n<p>He&#8217;s big, fast, strong, and well-rounded. He&#8217;s a solid receiver out of the backfield, and if he gets into open space, he&#8217;s gone. Murray is arguably the most unique running back in all of football, and unless the Raiders are lucky, they&#8217;ll have a really hard time replacing him.<\/p>\n<p>Murray is only 27 years old, and has fewer than 600 attempts so far in his young career. It will be interesting to see what he can do behind a different offensive line.<\/p>\n<div class=\"getty embed image\" style=\"background-color: #fff; display: inline-block; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue',Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif; color: #a7a7a7; font-size: 11px; width: 100%; max-width: 594px;\">\n<div style=\"padding: 0; margin: 0; text-align: left;\"><a style=\"color: #a7a7a7; text-decoration: none; font-weight: normal !important; border: none; display: inline-block;\" href=\"http:\/\/www.gettyimages.com\/detail\/628944944\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Embed from Getty Images<\/a><\/div>\n<div style=\"overflow: hidden; position: relative; height: 0; padding: 66.666667% 0 0 0; width: 100%;\"><iframe loading=\"lazy\" style=\"display: inline-block; position: absolute; top: 0; left: 0; width: 100%; height: 100%; margin: 0;\" src=\"\/\/embed.gettyimages.com\/embed\/628944944?et=O3zTt3R_SrpiEliKe5j2Rg&amp;viewMoreLink=off&amp;sig=pTFulsbfoj4_14n7u5fhaV_FuDU0z7OZAtOofFPxMfs=&amp;caption=true\" width=\"594\" height=\"396\" frameborder=\"0\" scrolling=\"no\"><\/iframe><\/div>\n<p style=\"margin: 0;\">\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Running back Latavius Murray spent the previous years of his NFL career as a member of the Oakland Raiders. He was a sixth-round pick in 2013.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1347,"featured_media":13289,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"","_lmt_disable":"","sfio_featured_image":false,"sfio_embed_code":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[36,26],"tags":[61,118,45,40,157],"class_list":["post-13286","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-nfl-news","category-vikings","tag-football","tag-latavius-murray","tag-minnesota-vikings","tag-nfl","tag-oakland-raiders"],"modified_by":"Ben Kerr","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13286","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1347"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13286"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13286\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/13289"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13286"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13286"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13286"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}