averagejoe
You fell victim to one of the classic blunders.
You may be right.He did have over 200 touches, but 174 of those were in the first 9 games and he only had 46 the rest of the season while getting beat out by Ito Smith (61 touches) and Brian Hill (53 touches) both of whom the Falcons thought so highly of that they aren't on their team anymore. I don't know how anybody at this point can think those knees have anything left in them. I mean he only averaged 3.5 yards per carry for the season and the only reason he had any value early was all the touchdowns inside the 5 he was getting (all 9 touchdowns were also in the first 9 games).
But another sceanrio may be that since the Falcons were only 3-12 and weren't going anywhere, perhaps they wanted to see what else they had on their bench for the future? In those first 9 games, Gurley did have an 80-yard game vs Chicago and 121-yard game vs Carolina. His numbers were not all that terrible even if his ypc started to decline.
Maybe I'm looking at him with a glass-half-full?