If DeMarco Murray wants to return to Dallas, it's going to cost him

Assuming that Eagles running back DeMarco Murray wants out of Philly (he does) and that the Eagles are open to trading him (they reportedly are) and that the Cowboys are interested in a reunion (they could be), there would be only two impediments to a deal.

First, the Eagles and Cowboys would have to work out agreeable terms of compensation. Second, Murray would have to revise the five-year, $40 million contract he signed a year ago.

A trade between the two teams wouldn’t be out of the question based simply on the fact that they’re in the same division. In 2007, for example, the Cowboys traded up with the Eagles to draft Anthony Spencer, and the Eagles landed quarterback Kevin Kolb with the lower selection.

The bigger issue is Murray’s contract. And it’s not because the Eagles would absorb a $13 million cap hit by cutting him. If they trade him, the Eagles would absorb a cap charge of only $4 million this year, and he’d be off the books in 2017.

The problem comes from the guaranteed money due in 2016 and beyond. Murray has a fully-guaranteed $7 million base salary this year, and $2 million of his 2017 base salary is fully guaranteed. Murray would have to take less this year, and possibly waive his guarantees for 2017, to facilitate a trade.

Murray already has made $9 million under his contract with the Eagles; considerably more than he made in four years with Dallas. But the Eagles owe him plenty more over the next two years, and they’d surely love to unload that obligation. The question is whether Murray would decrease the obligation to the point where someone else would assume.