At this point, we can only imagine what Ezekiel Elliott (and Tony Pollard) could do with a head coach and offensive coordinator that believed in the running game. Zeke had a career-low 237 carries for the 2021 season. I understand that he was playing injured for the majority of the season, but when healthy, that total is nowhere near enough. His carries need to be somewhere in the 300s. The Cowboys need a run-first offensive coordinator that builds from the team's true strength, and then we would be much better off.
In my unpopular opinion, the Cowboys would be better off if Zeke started winning rushing titles again. In both of the previous years he did that, the Cowboys made it to the Divisional round of the playoffs, and were a couple of questionable coaching decisions away from being in the NFC Championship Game. Of course Zeke would have to stay healthy, but the coaches would also have to commit to the running game. And YES, there are ways for Tony Pollard to still get his touches even with Zeke getting 300+ carries. Bottom line, once we started giving Zeke the ball less, we started losing more.
There is an increasing number of people by the day saying that TP actually needs to replace Zeke in the starting lineup. These people have been fooled by TP's production in his current role. As well as he's been playing, he's not built to carry a full load. He didn't even do it in college. Also, TP doesn't pick up blitzes nearly as well as Zeke. I also think it's better to have a punishing back late in a game to pound the defense.
Aside from all of those things, the pro-Tony Pollard crowd also needs to brush up on their history. The Cowboys have made the mistake of moving the change-of-pace RB to the starting lineup multiple times in the past. Do the names Troy Hambrick, Marion Barber, Felix Jones, and Joseph Randle ring a bell? In the case of T-Ham, MBIII and Randle, the starter was run out of town and they got promoted to that spot. The results were not good. This is what happens when you try to fix what's not broken.
Tony Pollard's plays are designed for space and flash, but you can't let yourself get fooled by that. Again, he's not the type of RB that can hold up with a heavy workload. He needs to stay fresh so he can come in late in games and take advantage of a defense that Ezekiel Elliott has softened up. You still need Zeke to come in and put his hat in the pile time after time and to block a linebacker, or even a DT/DE that the O-line missed. Like I said, go back and look at what happened every time we gave a backup the starting job.
It's absolutely dumbfounding how people who claim to be football fans can be so clueless about the basics of the game. I'm not calling out any specific person, but common sense should tell anybody that follows the game that the change-of-pace RB has a huge advantage in his yards per carry average when he's not asked to make many short yardage runs and is frequently sent into the game with fresh legs after the starter has softened the defense up.
When have we heard of a head coach or defensive coordinator talking about designing a game plan to stop Tony Pollard? How can people not know that having a RB like Ezekiel Elliott threaten the defense is the reason the passing game was so successful in 2021. The teams that dropped and played coverage and let the running game work got run on for over 200 yards.....and still lost. This is still a pick-your-poison proposition.
Even the media is now of the opinion that TP needs to be the starter and that he's the better RB. Not only are people parroting that opinion, but now people have the nerve to call Zeke an average RB. By definition, average is basically "middle of the pack". Zeke was top 10 finisher among the NFL's rushing leaders, so he was decidedly NOT average. Even on 1 leg he averaged more than 4 yards per carry. To pull that off in the NFL might be more impressive than winning a rushing title.
As long as Zeke is getting over 4 yards per carry as primarily an inside runner and continues to protect his quarterback, he's definitely not average. If you have any doubts about the value of keeping your QB upright, all you have to do is watch ESPN or NFL Network on any given Sunday evening and see how many QBs are getting their block knocked off because their RBs don't do what Zeke does for Dak Prescott. Or you'll get a reminder when TP misses a block that leads to a forced fumble by Dak.
People that hate Zeke will hate him no matter what, and most are just mad at him because of his salary. But nothing will change the fact that before Zeke got hurt, he was 2nd in the NFL in rushing and averaging more than 5 yards per carry. But asking him to always have to break tackles in the backfield and be Dak's personal protector started taking a toll on him, and frankly, shortening his career. All in all, Zeke is effective in giving the offense exactly what it needs, which is steady positive yards on the ground to keep defenses from being able to tee off on Dak or drop 7 into coverage.
You can say what you want about Zeke not being as effective after his knee injury or how he should have sat out until he healed. But I applaud him for playing under the circumstances. I don't see how you can trash a man that's giving his team as much as he gave the Cowboys in 2021. He played hurt. He had his touches reduced. He's had to hear people proclaiming his demise and the need to replace him with Tony Pollard. Yet, he's still giving his all for the team and he keeps putting his body in front fast moving men that are bigger than him for the good of the team and to his own detriment.
When people say that Zeke doesn't care since he got paid, they ignore the amount of physical pain that he played through and had to endure every time he had to protect his quarterback. And before you say Zeke doesn't take the kind of beating he used to now that he splits carries, think about all those collisions with blitzers. Those also come with a price to his body. His legs might not have to work as hard, but his upper body will be every bit as sore as if he carried the ball 350 times. I don't see the logic in this kind of hating, especially towards a player on your favorite team.
If I had to pick out anything I'm not too crazy about with Zeke, it would only be 1 thing: his love for contact. He goes LOOKING for it instead of trying to avoid it. Zeke would rather hit somebody and make them pay for the tackle than run free and clear. He's always been that way, but that's not conducive to a long career. I personally want to see him play as long as he possibly can, and be an impact player for as long as he can. This makes it even more imperative that the Cowboys get that offensive line fixed. Then he'll have bigger holes to run through, which means you can't smash into anybody if there's nobody there to hit.
If I had to come up with a way to help Zeke get back to an All-Pro level, of course I would start with fixing the O-line. I would also bring in and actually USE a fullback that can block. I would give Nick Ralston the first shot at it. I personally don't care that the NFL is trending away from the position. Fullbacks are worth their weight in gold in short yardage situations. Zeke is at his best when he has a fullback in front of him, so that would be an important cog in my offense.
With a fullback in the backfield, we would be in the I-formation most of the time, which means no more delayed shotgun handoffs that take away a RB's ability to hit the line with a head of steam. I would have my O-line doing some basic trap blocking and double teaming at the point of attack. My running game would be more than just running straight ahead into a pile. I would be hitting the edges and running off tackle, even mixing in some misdirection too. I would also let Dak use his legs when necessary, which adds another weapon to the offense. Oh, and the empty backfield would be almost nonexistent.
Most importantly, I would make my offensive coordinator commit to the running game and stick with it, or go find one that will. We can't have anymore games where we run for over 100 yards in the 1st half and then start the 2nd half passing on 12 of your first 13 snaps like we did against the Giants in Week 15. I would also work extensively with my wide receivers and tight ends on their downfield blocking, which is a serious weakness. This is the key to being able to get long runs. Good blocking from your WRs and TEs also allows you to consistently run outside.
When you are a dominant running team, with a featured running back, he gets the ball consistently, both early and late in games. Usually, when teams play to defend a feature back, he might average less than 4 yard per carry on his first 10 carries. When a team is committed to running the ball, a feature back will start picking up bigger chunks of yards later in the game as the defense wears out. Again, when the running game is working, it opens up the rest of the playbook for you.
You WILL NOT be able to consistently win in the NFL doing the same thing over and over every week. In fact, you can't even win doing it every possession within a single game. Balance is absolutely critical if you want to win a Super Bowl. You don't necessarily have to be 50/50, but 75/25 won't get it done. You can get away with that against bad teams, but if you want to go to Green Bay in January and win, you need to be able to run the ball. You can't beat anybody in the playoffs with an entire dimension of your offense missing.
The old saying is true: the running game and defense travels. High-flying passing offenses can be grounded by the weather, and sometimes just by crowd noise. Also, you lean on your running game when your quarterback is struggling. You have to be a complete team to beat playoff teams, and Kellen Moore seems to be purposely making the Cowboys an incomplete team. This has been going on for more than a decade. Play calling is what's holding back our talented team.
Fans love exciting plays from explosive offenses with creativity. That's what the Cowboys supposedly have in Moore's play calling. When it's not working, EVERYBODY looks bad. Like his predecessors, he also doesn't go back to whatever seems to work. At this point, the team is good in several areas, but not great or dominant at anything and definitely show no committed strategy to win games. We also have no identity. Make sure you take all of these things into consideration before you say Ezekiel Elliott is done or no longer cares about football. Because to ignore all of these facts is intellectually dishonest to this discussion.
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