Category: Ezekiel Elliott

‘We’re clicking:’ Cowboys RBs look to carry momentum into Philadelphia

Ezekiel Elliott and Tony Pollard combined for a monster game versus the Rams and hope their two-headed beast keeps rolling against Philly.

e Dallas Cowboys enjoyed their best game of the season on Sunday, thoroughly thumping the defending NFC champions from Los Angeles as they fought for their playoff lives. While highlights like Jason Witten making a one-handed grab and Tavon Austin finding himself all alone on a long touchdown pass made for fun television, it was largely a ground-based attack that propelled the team to a 44-21 win and a renewed sense of hope regarding a second straight division title.

The Cowboys ran for 263 yards against the Rams, their best effort of 2019 and highest single-game rushing total since 2017. Ezekiel Elliott logged 117 yards on 24 carries and found the end zone twice, while rookie Tony Pollard had his most productive day as a pro, racking up 131 yards on just 12 carries. The notion of the pair being a lethal double-headed backfield beast has tantalized fans ever since the club drafted the speedy Pollard out of Memphis and then cemented Elliott’s place on the team with a lucrative contract extension. Sunday felt like the first real unleashing of that monster, and it makes this Cowboys squad perhaps the scariest 7-7 team in memory as they ratchet up their ground game for a late December surge toward the postseason.

“We know how good our offensive line is,” Elliott said after Sunday’s win. “When we go out there and handle our business, when we go out there and execute, we’re hard to stop.”

“How many rushing yards did we have today? Like, 300? Close to it?” Elliott asked after the Week 15 win. “We ran the ball really well today. The O-line, I don’t know what they ate for breakfast, but they did a hell of a job and made it easy on us backs.”

Three-fifths of that offensive line- center Travis Frederick, guard Zack Martin, and tackle Tyron Smith- were just named to the 2020 Pro Bowl, along with Elliott.

“It starts up front,” quarterback Dak Prescott said in his postgame remarks Sunday. “Communicating. Those guys coming off the ball was beautiful. And then you look at the runners, the way they did. Broke tackles, made people miss. Both of those guys. That was so impressive.”

But Elliott may actually want to investigate what his line ate for breakfast last week and order it in bulk for Sunday. Up next for the group is a Philadelphia Eagles front that ranks third in the league in run defense, allowing an average of just 90.4 yards per game. They’ve given up over 100 rushing yards just four times all year. One of those instances, however, came against Dallas in their Week 7 meeting, when the Cowboys as a team rolled for 189 yards on the ground.

Now the Cowboys’ rushing attack will look to build off last Sunday’s 263-yard outing in the Philadelphia rematch that would award Dallas the NFC East crown with a victory.

“It’s great to know that a single win gets us in there, but that’s not our goal,” Elliott said. “Our goal isn’t just to make the playoffs. We want to keep this thing rolling, we want to ride this momentum.”

“Momentum is a dangerous thing,” Prescott echoed. “And it’s about getting it on our side.”

The acquisition and development of Pollard cannot be understated when reflecting on the 2019 season. The 22-year-old was selected in the fourth round of April’s draft. The speedster’s skills at returning kicks was documented, but it was hoped that he could be a potent change of pace to Elliott in the Dallas backfield, too.

Pollard’s usage has been up and down this season, but maybe he’s suddenly getting some of that momentum his quarterback mentioned. Against the Rams, Pollard logged double-digit carries for the first time since Week 3. That game saw the team rush for 235 yards as a whole, their previous top performance before this past Sunday. Granted, it’s a small sample size, but good things seem to happen when both Elliott and Pollard are heavily involved.

Prescott has definitely noticed the electrifying jolt his first-year weapon brings to the offense. He marveled of Pollard, “He’s just something else. Arm tackles and all that stuff, he’s just getting through it. He continues to make plays anytime the ball’s in his hands, and he’s a special player. Thankful we have him.”

“Seeing him just become a better player is kind of crazy,” Elliott said of Pollard. “I remember his first OTA, he was kind of a little timid and not really running as hard. We didn’t have on pads. But just to see him from there to now, it’s awesome. He’s a smart player, but also very skilled. He has a very bright future.”

For his part, the rookie has embraced the mentorship that the two-time league rushing champ has offered.

“He’s been like a big brother since I got here,” Pollard said of Elliott. “Taking me under his wing. Showing me, teaching me things that I didn’t know at first. He’s done a great job of that.”

And when both of them are ripping off hundred-yard days, it’s good to be a Cowboy: offense, defense, or otherwise.

“It’s just fun,” Pollard said of the team’s dominance on the ground on Sunday. “It just keeps the sideline excited, me and him talking… it’s just a good feeling: both guys clicking, the O-line’s clicking, the defense is rolling, special teams.”

“That’s what we’re built for. We’re built to be a balanced team,” Tyron Smith said of the Week 15 win, the first time since October 2018 that the Dallas ground game has outrushed Prescott’s passing totals. “I think the identity has always been there. It’s just, for us, doing it as a team, knowing what we’ve got to get done.”

Now they’ll have to get it done against the Eagles, a team they’ve beaten in each of their last four meetings. And they’ll have to get it done in Philly’s own house, a trip that coach Jason Garrett’s squads typically do well with.

“It’s a playoff game,” Prescott said of Sunday’s showdown. “Obviously, simple as that: it’s a playoff game. It’s a rival, it’s a team in the division, it’s a must-win game. We have to approach it as a playoff game, and that’s the way we will.”

The Cowboys’ prolific rushing attack was a revelation against the Rams in Week 15. Week 16 should prove to be more challenging, with an even tougher opponent versus the run and a divisional crown on the line.

Elliott knows what he and Pollard did last week obviously won’t count at Lincoln Financial Field, but it just might have helped give the team a good running start.

“I think we did set up some momentum. But we’ve still got a lot of work to do, got lot of work to do this season. And we’re just getting started.”

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WATCH: Cowboys strike with Ezekiel Elliott’s 8th rushing TD of 2019

Elliott scores three-yard touchdown, Cowboys go up 7-0 against the Chicago Bears.

The Dallas Cowboys have started hot again for the second consecutive week, scoring a touchdown on their opening possession.

Maligned much of the year for their slow starts, the Cowboys drove down the length of the field while converting four third-down conversions.  The drive totaled 75 yards on 17 plays and was capped off with a two-yard touch down run by Ezekiel Elliott.

This was Elliott’s eighth rushing touchdown of the season.  He has 33 yards on eight carries midway through the first quarter.

The Cowboys lead the Bears 7-0.

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Winners and Losers from Cowboys dry, gravy-less Turkey Day performance

The Dallas Cowboys had the family gathered around the table for Thanksgiving and had the audacity to trot out a bird that was simultaneously undercooked and dried out. Their normally potent offense sputtered for the second week in a row, and this …

The Dallas Cowboys had the family gathered around the table for Thanksgiving and had the audacity to trot out a bird that was simultaneously undercooked and dried out. Their normally potent offense sputtered for the second week in a row, and this time without the elements to blame. The defense gave up scoring opportunities to the Buffalo Bills on six straight drives (five cashed in with one missed field goal).

The special teams dropped the sweet potato too, leaving points on the board. In the end, Cowboys Nation had little to be thankful for as Dallas fell to the Buffalo Bills 26-15 to fall to 6-6 on the season. There were a few, not many, but a few bright spots mixed in with some head-scratching performances.

Winner – Ezekiel Elliott

Whatever that offensive offensive display was on Thursday where the team marched up and down the field only to turn the ball over, miss the field goal or lose possession on downs, it certainly wasn’t Elliott’s fault. It looked like the breakout game everyone was waiting for out of Elliott with a a 10, 20 and 30-yard gain in the first quarter.

But after having 10 carries in the first half, Elliott saw just two of them in the second and finished with just 71 yards on the ground with another 66 on six catches. 137 yards is a really good day, but it appeared Elliott could have reached 200 if the team committed to him.

Loser – Dak Prescott

Prescott had one of his worst days of the season, throwing an ill-advised screen pass that was intercepted by a lineman, having another pick canceled by a questionable defensive penalty and having multiple other passes tipped. He was also strip sacked multiple times as the clock in his head – the thing he usually has great control over – failed him. He was holding the ball entirely too long and paid for it. With Prescott struggling, it’s a major question why the play caller didn’t look to the other possible solution to get the game back on track as it was slipping away.

Loser – Whoever booked this act

What was this? One of the worst halftime performances of recent memory.

Jerome Miron-USA TODAY Sports

Winner – Amari Cooper

Right on schedule, Cooper had a good day in front of the home crowd, catching 8 of 11 passes for 87 yards, though he was held out of the end zone for the third straight game. Earlier in the week Cowboys Wire studied the numbers and discovered a gamut between Cooper’s home and road performances and saw that it stretches across his entire career. If Dallas is going to pay him big money in the near future, he’ll have to continue having days like Thursday, and figure out how to convert that to when he has to get on an airplane.

Loser – Amari Cooper

Guess who has to get an x-ray on his knee Friday after going down in the second half?

Jerome Miron-USA TODAY Sports

Loser – Brett Maher

Maher misssed another two field goals, dropping his rate under 68% on the season. He struggled last year, but made some awe-inspiring long kicks that kept him around. He started decent this year from short range, but the guy has never been a consistent kicker and it’s befuddling how Dallas continues to trot him out there without any competition.

Winner – Michael Bennett

Bennett finished with five tackles but didn’t get to touch the quarterback, so how is he a winner? Apparently, the player who was digging into his teammates to the point that Dallas closed the media from the locker room was Bennett, a guy who’s only been with the team for about a month now.

It’s presumptuous to say the team quit, but certainly there were a bunch of guys looking disinterested and Bennett apparently was imploring the team not to go down that road. He’s hinted that he’s considering retiring at the end of the year and one cannot be mad at him for joining a team with this much talent that looks this miserable right now.

Loser – Jerry Jones

All of this is on him.

He spoke at length with the media after the game and basically begged Jason Garrett to figure out a way so Jones doesn’t have to fire him after the season.

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Breaking down Ezekiel Elliott, Saquon Barkley’s miserable Week 10s

Jason Garrett and Kellen Moore fail to adjust their offense to suit the strengths of their personnel, setting Dallas back to a 5-4 record.

Half of the NFC East sat out this week on a bye, while the other half lost to teams they were favored against.  The New York Giants fell to the Jets in what’s closer to a race for draft position than the playoffs.  At the other end of the standings, the Dallas Cowboys hurt their own playoff bid with a loss to the Minnesota Vikings.

Both the Cowboys and the Giants were sunk by abysmal days on the ground for star running backs Ezekiel Elliott and Saquon Barkley.

The effectiveness (or lack thereof) of those running backs in Week 10 is easily seen with advanced box scores based on expected points.

Expected Points, the foundation of many analytical arguments, uses data from previous NFL seasons to determine how many points a team is likely to come away with on a given play based on down, distance, time remaining, and field position. The difference in expected points at the start of a play and expected points at the end is referred to as expected points added, or EPA.

A play with a positive EPA means it put the offense in a better position to score, while negative EPA implies the offense is in a worse position.

Barkley and Elliott finished with the worst and sixth-worst EPA/carry, respectively, among rushers with at least 10 carries this week.

For backs with at least 20 carries in a game without a fumble, Elliott finished with the fifth worst EPA/carry this season.

Both Elliott and Barkley even saw a below average rate of loaded box counts, per NFL’s Next Gen Stats.  That being said, there is still evidence that Elliott isn’t entirely to blame for the lack of a run game in Dallas this week.

Of Elliott’s 20 carries, 15 of them came with 10 yards to go.  He averaged 2.9 yards per carry in these situations and never gained more than six yards on a given run.  It was an ineffective ground game that the Cowboys simply refused to get away from throughout the game.  Despite a 57% success rate in the air on 14 first down throws, Dallas elected to run the ball 16 times with a 12.5% success rate.

The point at which Dallas’ commitment to the run game proved to be a fatal flaw came in the Cowboys’ final drive (excluding the hail mary drive in the final 24 seconds).  Dak Prescott threw for eight yards on first down, only to watch Ezekiel Elliott, in his first short yardage carries of the day, run for 0 and -3 yards on the next two plays.  That was enough to drop Dallas’ win probability nearly 25%.

Meanwhile, in the passing game:

After Lamar Jackson, who had another ridiculous game this week, Dak Prescott was the most effective passer in the NFL on Sunday.  He finished with the 10th highest completion percentage over expected (CPOE) in the NFL this week as well, completing nearly 4% more passes than expected based on target depth.  Daniel Jones wasn’t quite the same level, but he was above average in both EPA/pass and CPOE.  A significantly better day for him than Barkley’s 13 carries for one yard.

Top Offensive Play

Daniel Jones’ quick strike that turned into a 61-yard touchdown to Golden Tate earned the top EPA play this week in the division. (6.5 EPA)

Top Defensive Play

A big third-down sack from Robert Quinn was the biggest EPA play among the defenses in the division this week. (-2.3 EPA)

Looking Ahead

Washington comes back from their bye week with what is likely to be their weakest remaining opponent.  They’ll take on a Jets team that has been below average in the air and on the ground.  It should be noted, however, that Sam Darnold has been throwing for -0.09 EPA/pass since returning from illness.  Dwayne Haskins, Washington’s new starter, has an EPA/pass of -0.53.  Even so, Washington is still currently favored by one in their home game coming back from a bye.

Philadelphia gets the league’s top defense this week, but at least they get them at home.  New England proved that they were at least partially a product of the poor offenses they faced in the first eight weeks when Baltimore ran all over them, but Philadelphia is no Baltimore.  The Eagles will need to hold down New England’s fairly average passing attack to keep this one close.

Dallas faces what could potentially be a Matt Stafford-less Detroit Lions.  Stafford is having one of his best seasons yet and leading the NFL in average depth of target.  If he can’t go for the second week in a row, Jeff Driskel looks to take the reigns.  Driskel’s EPA/pass is in the negative, a far cry from Stafford’s 0.27.  Prescott remains in the top-3 in the NFL by EPA/pass.  Should Jason Garrett allow Prescott to throw just a bit more, and should Stafford sit out again, this should be a perfect get-right game for Dallas.

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‘Zeke’s not going anywhere’ early Cowboys theme, never changed tune

The Cowboys were unable to get a running game going against Minnesota, but that didn’t stop them from pounding Ezekiel Elliott anyway.

Of all the maddening storylines of Sunday night’s 28-24 loss to Minnesota, the Cowboys’ stubborn insistence on sticking with a rushing attack that simply wasn’t working is near the very top of the list. But that failure in and of itself has two different components to it. There’s the playcalling from coach Jason Garrett and offensive coordinator Kellen Moore. And yes, that was atrociously bad in key moments. But there’s also the ineffectiveness of the players actually executing those ground game plays, namely, defending rushing champ Ezekiel Elliott. And that’s the thing that might actually be more concerning for this team in the long run.

The Cowboys have made it clear since his rookie year in 2016 that Elliott is the centerpiece of the offense. With two rushing titles in three seasons (and an equally torrid pace in the season he was suspended for six games), the former top-five draft pick has performed like it, mostly. The message in Dallas is clear: when you play the Cowboys, you’re going to get a heavy dose of No. 21.

But according to owner and general manager Jerry Jones, a different message was broadcast early in Sunday night’s contest.

“You just basically could have put a sign on the start of the game that said ‘Zeke’s not going anywhere,'” Jones told the media after the loss in which Elliott gained just 47 rushing yards despite 20 carries, an average of 2.35 yards per run. “And that was the story of the game.”

“It’s definitely frustrating, Elliott said after the game, his fifth (including playoffs) as a Cowboy in which he gained under 50 yards on the ground. “They’re a pro team, too; they did a good job bottling up the run. They were better than us.”

Wideout Amari Cooper, despite his own performance filled with good numbers and highlight-reel catches, shared in that disappointment.

“It’s very frustrating,” Cooper told reporters. “We love to run the ball here. That’s part of our identity. So when a team takes that away, we’re limited. We have the best running back in the league, so…” Cooper trailed off, seemingly at a loss, before summing up, “We just have to be better.”

Last year’s midseason acquisition of Cooper as a legitimate downfield threat was- theoretically- supposed to not only make it easier for Elliott to find some running room, but also reduce his workload. After nine games thus far in 2019, Elliott has 788 yards on 178 rushing attempts, a per-carry average of 4.4 yards. Nine games into last season, Elliott had 168 carries for 831 yards and a 4.9 average. The first seven of those games came without Cooper on the team.

So let’s review. This season has Amari Cooper in the huddle, Michael Gallup no longer a secret, Randall Cobb in the slot, Jason Witten running Y-options again, Travis Frederick back on the O-line, Tony Pollard providing a speedy change of pace, and wunderkind Kellen Moore dialing up an offense that was supposed to be versatile and multifaceted. Yet in 2019, Elliott is actually getting more chances and doing less with them.

Is this pushing the panic button in the immediate wake of a demoralizing loss? Perhaps in part; no one was all that worried about an Elliott decline last week after he ripped off 139 on the ground in New York and averaged six yards per tote. Much of Monday morning’s concerns are indeed a direct result of Sunday night’s opponent.

“I think it’s definitely one of the best defenses we’ve played this season,” Elliott admitted of the Vikings squad. “Definitely, run defense did a great job just neutralizing our run and really giving us nowhere all day to run the ball.”

“Obviously, there was a lot of attention there,” Garrett told the press of Minnesota’s focus on Elliott. “They have a really good front, and they have good linebackers. They’re a good run defense. They were trying to make sure that they stopped the run. I thought that we did a good job responding to that; we were pretty effective throwing the football.”

Pretty effective. Quarterback Dak Prescott finished the night 28-of-46 for 397 yards and three touchdowns to three different receivers. He took just one sack and logged only one interception, the failed Hail Mary as time expired. Yes, Prescott was “pretty effective.” And that’s what made the coaching staff’s blind allegiance to the middling rushing attack so difficult to watch, especially after the passing game had put the Cowboys in a position to win the game late.

With under two minutes to play, down by four, and on the Minnesota 11-yard-line, Dallas ran Elliott on second down for no gain. And then again on third down for a three-yard loss. Prescott, incidentally, had gone 6-for-7 and 79 yards through the air on the drive up to that point.

So after the rally ultimately fell short, everyone with a microphone and a notepad wanted to grill the Cowboys players, coaches, and brass about why they seemingly took the ball out of Prescott’s hands in crunch time.

“You want to attack different ways,” Garrett said. “It’s important for us to continue to try to run the ball. In normal circumstances, you would think if we give it to Zeke a couple times, second and inside of two yards, we’re going to make that first down. Unfortunately, it didn’t happen in this game.”

“You ask that offensive line, you ask the running back, they’re going to say that they need to execute those plays,” Prescott stated in his postgame press conference. “We get that first down, nobody in here’s even talking about [how] they took the ball out of my hands, right?”

But Elliott didn’t get the first down. Either time. And so everyone is, in fact, talking about how the coaches seemingly took the ball out of Prescott’s hands.

Jones was blunt when asked about the ill-fated decision to force the run late.

“I’m not going to get into that,” he said. “Since it didn’t work, we’d all like to have that back. But you’ve got to keep trying.”

It appears that Garrett and Moore will do exactly that, no matter the opponent, no matter the situation, no matter if it’s working or not.

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