Cowboys’ Elliott in brand new realm, private coach says RB ‘hasn’t worked like this’ before

The two-time rushing champ started working with Josh Hicks after a recommendation from Leonard Fournette during Tampa Bay’s Super Bowl run.

Ezekiel Elliott is primed for a big bounceback season in 2021. Quarterback Dak Prescott senses it. Fellow running back Tony Pollard believes it. Legendary personnel guru Gil Brandt guarantees it.

But if the Cowboys ball carrier does, in fact, return to the form that netted him two rushing titles in his first three seasons as a pro, it will likely be in no small part thanks to his personal running backs coach.

Josh Hicks has been training Elliott this offseason, after a disappointing 2020 campaign that saw Elliott turn in career lows in rushing yards, yards-per-carry, 20-plus-yard-runs, and rushing touchdowns.

“When I first got him, to me, Zeke’s feet seemed a bit heavy,” Hicks said, according to The Athletic‘s Jon Machota. “They were coming up and off the ground, but not as quick as we needed them to be.”

Elliott finished the year outside the league’s top ten rushers, and has had many outsiders wondering aloud if the 25-year-old workhorse was instead ready to be put out to pasture.

“Everybody said it,” Hicks admitted, “and he probably saw it and felt it himself, that he probably slowed down a little bit or lost a step a little bit or whatever.”

But then the private workouts started. Videos of the drills frequently made their way to social media. Elliott was only navigating agility hurdles and dodging trash cans, but things started to look different as spring wore on.

“He was way quicker, way more elusive, more fluent,” Hicks said of Elliott’s more recent work. “I know he’s getting better.”

Elliott was turned on to Hicks after a recommendation from Buccaneers running back Leonard Fournette. Hicks had worked with Fournette during Tampa Bay’s Super Bowl run; the former first-round pick posted impressive stats in the team’s postseason performances. Elliott was intrigued enough to reach out to Hicks himself.

Using SMU and a Metroplex high school as training locations, the two had been working out two to three times a week, with Pollard often joining in. As Machota writes, the goal has been “to get their feet quicker, their hips more elusive, and making movements at a pace that will keep defenders off balance.”

But now with training camp less than three weeks away, the frequency of those sessions with Hicks will taper off.

“It’s good to get in your work,” Hicks said, “but I don’t want you to overwork yourself and then during the season by Week 8, you’re burned out.”

By the look of it on Twitter and to hear Hicks (and his own teammates) tell it, though, Elliott will be coming into 2021’s camp with a renewed focus and in prime condition.

“Zeke’s in good shape,” Hicks said. “I agree with Dak. I agree with Tony. I was on the outside looking in. They’ve been with this man three, four years. They see him way more than I see him. They’ve seen him work in practice and they’ve seen him work in the offseason.

“I don’t think Zeke has ever worked like this in the offseason. I could be mistaken. But me, personally, when it comes to my drills and what I do and how I do it, I know he hasn’t worked like this.”

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