In a game that was largely sold as the anniversary of a devastating injury and saw multiple Giants players lost over the course of four quarters in Arlington, Cowboys fans found their hearts lodged firmly in their throats once again when one of their superstars was sprawled out in pain on the AT&T Stadium turf.
The moment came roughly halfway through the third quarter at the end of a seven-yard run. Elliott was pushed out of bounds and landed on the line-to-gain pylon. But then he didn’t get up.
The two-time rushing champ limped away, wincing and reaching for his back. Thankfully, though, his absence was short-lived. Three plays later, Elliott’s 4-yard touchdown catch extended the Dallas lead to 24-13.
As if to prove he was fine, Elliott went into the end zone with demonstrable style.
“I think it was the high-stepping, right? He was high-stepping in on that one,” quarterback Dak Prescott emphasized. “Just a tough guy. I’ve said time and time again, he’s going to do whatever it takes for this offense to be successful for this team to win. And right there, obviously being in some pain, making sure he was okay, and once he realized he was fine, he’s going to put himself back in there to try and get a touchdown, to try to help this team whether it’s his ball or not. It just ended up going to him on that play. He’s just a special player, and he means a lot to this offense as a leader and obviously just as a runner.”
After the 44-20 victory, Elliott explained the freak (and luckily minor) injury.
“Yeah, I fell on the pylon. That thing is kind of hard. Maybe they should find a new spot for it,” he laughed to reporters following the win. “I think it is foamy, but it’s hard. It’s hard. The bottom- the base of it- is hard, too. No, it’s definitely not soft.”
The ubiquitous orange pylons may look like they’re made out of Nerf material, but thanks to the expensive camera gear now housed inside for TV purposes, they’re surprisingly hard. And it hurt to land on top of one, Elliott said.
“It did! Yeah, it definitely hurt. Normally, I get up and at least get off the field. But right there, I had to chill out a little bit. It kind of just stabbed me. Lost my wind.”
Ezekiel Elliott: “I fell on the pylon. That thing is kinda hard. Maybe we should find a new spot for it. … I think it is foamy, but it’s hard. The base of it is hard too. It’s definitely not soft. It definitely hurt. It kinda stabbed me. I lost my wind.” pic.twitter.com/eNV6NpY772
— Jon Machota (@jonmachota) October 11, 2021
It was one of the few setbacks the Cowboys’ run game encountered on Sunday. Elliott and backfieldmate Tony Pollard combined for 185 ground yards. Add in a few runs by Prescott, CeeDee Lamb, and Cedrick Wilson, and the team rolled to 201 rushing yards.
The effort was even more impressive given that the Cowboys felt their rivals in blue had set out to specifically stop the rushing attack.
“They came with a pretty heavy run defense emphasis today,” head coach Mike McCarthy explained in his postgame press conference. “When you run the ball and you’re in a run/pass mode, that’s one way. But when you run the ball and they know you’re going to run it, and you have success, that’s what we’re looking for. I really like the fact we ran into some tilted defenses and ran it well, ran it physical. I just think it speaks to the confidence of the run-blocking unit as a whole, and to the running of both Zeke and Tony. We need to continue to go that way. As much as we can play run-to-pass, I don’t know exactly what the numbers were, but I know we were over 300 and over 100-plus rushing, so those are good numbers.”
Actually, it was two hundred-plus yards on the ground, and over three hundred in the air. Those are very good numbers indeed. Sunday marked the first time the Cowboys have reached both plateaus in the same game since 1983.
Looking just at the box score, then, it might be surprising to learn that Elliott and the Cowboys weren’t even particularly pleased with their overall level of play.
“Yeah, we didn’t play that well,” Elliott said. “We had some turnovers early. We turned the ball over in the red zone; that can’t happen at all. We got the job done, but we’ve definitely got to focus on playing a complete game. I said last week that’s our next step as a team: playing a complete game and dominating a team from the first to the fourth quarter. So we’ve got some work to do.”
Fortunately for Dallas, that work will include a full-strength Elliott, even after his close encounter with a shockingly stout piece of field equipment.
He said after the game that his back was still smarting from the blow.
“Oh no, I feel it.”
Dinged or not, the league’s third-highest-ranked rusher is expected to be ready to take on the Patriots in Foxborough next Sunday, says McCarthy.
“I don’t have any high concern for Zeke or any of our guys right now.”
Elliott famously spent his offseason juking trash cans during private summer workouts. But suddenly, the team might need to add pylon-dodging to its list of drills for the upcoming week of practice.
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