Report: Raiders will let Latavius Murray test Free Agency

It appears that the days may be numbered for Latavius Murray as a Raider after all, at least if you believe the report coming from ESPN's Josina Anderson anyway. She says that the Raiders will let Murray check out free agency but that “the door will be open” for his return if he decided to come back after fielding offers from other teams.

This isn't a surprise considering Reggie McKenzie would likely have signed him to an extension already if he was willing to make a deal without Murray seeing his market value. The lack of value placed on running backs with teams feeling cheaper replacements can provide similar returns is also a factor here. That is especially the case when there are such great prospects at the position in this year’s upcoming draft.

Oakland already has two running backs that have shown to be very valuable themselves in Jalen Richard and DeAndre Washington which is also a factor in the Raiders urgency to retain Murray. That isn't to say that Latavius doesn't provide an important role for the Raiders though, his 12 touchdowns and 1,042 yards from scrimmage were a vital piece to the Oakland offense.

Though Richard and Washington showed immense potential in their rookie seasons, they were more successful as change of pace backs showing there will be a need at the position without Murray on the roster. However, there are plenty of options available this year to replace Murray which had been highlighted previously in an excellently written FanPost from TJ Porreca.

If the Raiders are indeed letting Murray test free agency then they should probably start taking a hard look at those replacement options. As we learned with Jared Veldheer (who Donald Penn has replaced nearly flawlessly, thankfully) a player testing free agency is not always eager to let their former team know what the market price was set at before signing a new deal.