DeMarco Murray Madden Career 2012-2018 - Peak 94 OVR

DeMarco Murray was a third-round pick out of Oklahoma in 2011 who spent a few seasons as a talented, occasionally injured back before 2014 turned him into a monster. Behind the best offensive line in football, he led the NFL with 1,845 rushing yards, opened the year with eight straight 100-yard games to break a record that had stood since 1958, and won Offensive Player of the Year.

The Madden card chased that season hard. He had opened at a 69 and climbed steadily, but after 2014 the grade spiked to a 94 peak in Madden NFL 16, the number of a back who had just carried an offense on his shoulders and touched the ball more than anyone in the league. It was the high-water mark, and both the player and the rating knew it, because what came next was a cautionary tale.

He cashed the season into a big free-agent deal with Philadelphia in 2015 that flopped badly, a poor scheme fit that produced 702 yards and is still cited among the worst contracts of its kind, and the card dropped with him. A bounce-back in Tennessee in 2016, another 1,200-yard Pro Bowl year, salvaged the tail of his career before he retired in 2018. Murray's spike to a 94 and the fall after are the honest shape of a back who peaked enormously, exactly once, on exactly the right team.