Tag: 1000-yard running back

News: Aikman thinks directionless Cowboys now capable of playoff run

Also, looking at Dallas’s playoff chances and possible opponents, what sparked the defense’s turnaround, and key injury updates.

Plenty of news in Cowboys Nation as the team prepares to close out the 2020 regular season with an early-2021 date in New York. Dallas can still make the postseason with a win and help, although their chances of going on to compete for the Lombardi Trophy are statistically infinitesimal. But even one of the franchise’s all-time legends agrees there is hope, and that’s something that seemed lost just a few weeks ago.

The Giants know the Cowboys are different bunch now, and their head coach breaks down the ways. A seemingly healthy Ezekiel Elliott could be looking at another 1,000-yard season, and some are already looking ahead to the Cowboys’ possible opponent in a wild-card round. Whatever happens, there will be decisions to be made: about fifth-year options on rookie contracts, about Andy Dalton’s future, about Mike Nolan and the Dallas defense that has only just recently come alive… and about the franchise tag of one Rayne Dakota Prescott. All that, and a Cowboys legend blows out the candles on another birthday cake. Here’s the News and Notes.

Cowboys’ Jones: Elliott to ‘absolutely’ play through injury; will 1,000-yard season happen?

The Dallas owner and coach both expect their starting running back to play Sunday, despite an injury and his worst year thus far as a pro.

Ezekiel Elliott has yet to miss a game during his Cowboys tenure due to injury. He doesn’t think his current calf issue will keep him out of Sunday’s contest against San Francisco. Neither does his coach. And neither does the team owner. But No. 21’s presence in the Dallas backfield is no longer the magic bullet it used to be.

The running back tweaked a calf muscle during Week 13’s game against Baltimore. He played through it last week versus Cincinnati. While he maintains he will do so again this Sunday, he was held out of practice on Wednesday and Thursday as the team prepares.

“Understandably, he’s a little further away this week than he was last week, because he played in the game,” head coach Mike McCarthy told reporters via virtual press conference on Friday. “I still plan on him playing Sunday. Today will be important, and the amount of work that he gets tomorrow will factor. All things look like he’s going to play in the game. But as a comparable, and rightfully so after coming off of a game Sunday, he’s a little further behind than where he was this time last week.”

Owner Jerry Jones was more emphatic when asked if Elliott would be in the huddle this week.

“Absolutely,” Jones told 105.3 The Fan. “Absolutely. Now, that’s Jerry Jones saying it, and that’s not my ankle and my hamstring and my knee, so it’s easier for me to say. But in terms of my understanding of where he is, in terms of knowing Zeke- which is huge- it’s hard to keep that guy down from the standpoint of something physical. He understands. He wrote the book on how to play with pain and how to be compromised, physically, to play. So I expect him to play.”

But should Cowboys fans expect Elliott to be especially productive? That, sadly, is a different question entirely.

Elliott is averaging the fewest yards per carry (3.9) and yards per game (64) of his pro career. At that exact pace, reaching 1,000 yards on the season is going to be close. Elliott stands at 832; he’ll need 168 over the final three games to reach the benchmark he’s hit in every season except 2017, when he was suspended for six games. And even then, he finished right on the doorstep, with 983.

To crack a thousand, Elliott will need to average 56 yards per game against the 49ers, Eagles, and Giants. That doesn’t sound like much for the two-time rushing champ. It certainly wasn’t for the Elliott of 2016, 2017, 2018, or 2019. In those seasons, he averaged 108.7, 98.3, 95.6, and 84.8 yards per game played, respectively.

But 2020 Zeke hasn’t been that guy. Not even close. Again, he’s averaging 64 yards per game this year. He has only one 100-yard outing this entire season.

He failed to top 56 rushing yards against: Seattle, Cleveland, Arizona, Washington (the first time), Pittsburgh, Washington (the second time), and Cincinnati. He just barely cleared that number in the Cowboys’ first meeting with Philadelphia. The 49ers and Giants? They’re both currently ranked in the league’s top eight for fewest rushing yards allowed. If he’s going to roll the odometer over to 1K, he’s got an uphill road ahead of him.

To be fair, Elliott has seen his snap count drop over the last few months. Is that simply because backup Tony Pollard has deliberately been given an increased role as a planned change-of-pace? Or has Pollard’s noticeable burst and shiftiness helped relegate the former first-round draft pick to more of a platoon player? Is Elliott producing less because of Pollard? Or is Pollard producing more thanks to Elliott’s struggles? Chicken or the egg?

Whatever the reason behind the funk, Elliott is eager to keep chipping away in order to break out of it.

“It would feel good to stack some success and stack some victories,” he said this week, per the team website.

“We have three games,” Elliott added. “We’re still in it. We’re not out of it. So these last three games are important. We want to win these three games so we can put ourselves in a position to win the division.”

That, of course, seems mathematically improbable. But right now, Elliott notching another 1,000-yard campaign- once a given in Dallas- isn’t even terribly likely.

To his credit, though, Elliott says he’s focused only on team wins, not personal achievements.

“I’m a competitor over everything,” he said. “I’m not really trying to relate this year to next year. Every time we go out there we go out there to win a football game. I just think it’s important for this group of men to finish the season strong and do our best to win football games.”

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Elliott defiantly rejects idea Cowboys WR trio will steal his touches

The Dallas RB took to Twitter to quash any perceived drama over whether he’ll still see a heavy workload under coach Mike McCarthy in 2020.

Amari Cooper this week set the bar awfully high for himself and his pass-catching cohorts in Dallas. If he, Michael Gallup, and rookie CeeDee Lamb follow through on what Cooper called “the expectations” for all three to notch 1,000-yard receiving seasons, it would mark just the sixth time in league history a trio of teammates has accomplished the feat.

Cooper may have raised a few eyebrows by saying it out loud. But running back Ezekiel Elliott was quick to smack down the attempts by one reporter to raise questions about what that might mean for the team’s rushing attack.

ESPN’s Ed Werder, a longtime Cowboys insider, wondered via Twitter what a pass-heavy gameplan- the kind that might produce three 1,000-yard receivers- would leave in terms of touches for Elliott, who’s averaged 20-plus carries per game in each of his last three seasons.

The two-time rushing champ, though, does not seem to be concerned about his workload taking a nosedive simply because there’s a wealth of WR weaponry in the Dallas huddle.

A few things to consider. First, with Brett Favre and Aaron Rodgers on the roster, it’s no wonder the Packers were a pass-first team, especially when the best backfield options were the likes of Ahman Green, Ryan Grant, and Eddie Lacy. Fine rushers, all, but none of them realistically approach Elliott’s caliber. McCarthy “putting his full faith in the QB” during his Green Bay tenure is, then, completely understandable. It’s sound strategy. But it doesn’t automatically follow that he’ll blindly force the same philosophy in Dallas.

But even if McCarthy does go with an all-out air raid, that’s not to say Elliott won’t still rack up his numbers. Of the five previous squads to feature a trio of 1,000-yard receivers, two also had a rusher hit the milestone, as The Athletic‘s Jon Machota pointed out.

Legendary offenses find a way to spread the ball around, and Dallas’s offense has all the ingredients to be just that.

Finally, it’s not like the Cowboys didn’t come really close to pulling off this exact feat just last season. In 2019, both Cooper and Gallup topped 1,000 yards. In fact, each finished with over 1,100. Randall Cobb totaled 828, falling just 172 yards short of the magic benchmark. That’s over 3,000 yards distributed among three guys. And yet, Elliott still ended up with 1,357 on the ground.

While Cooper, Gallup, and Lamb could mathematically all be 1,000-yard men and still leave more than enough meat on the bone for Elliott, the triple-1K crown isn’t something that fans should necessarily want to see.

Cowboys staff writers debated the notion on the team website. All admit that it’s certainly possible, given the talents of the players in question. But while it would likely be fun to watch, it may not be desirable. In fact, if it does happen, it could mean that the season is not going as hoped.

Writes David Helman:

“Dak Prescott’s favorite guy is the open guy. He’s going to throw a lot of balls to running backs, and the (hopeful) emergence of Blake Jarwin is another thing to consider.”

From Rob Phillips:

“[I]f the Cowboys have more success as a team, play with more leads, Elliott and Tony Pollard will have more chances to grind out yards. The offense played from behind a lot last season. That’s a big reason why quarterback Dak Prescott had at least 40 pass attempts in seven of the 16 games.”

And according to Nick Eatman:

“Honestly, if things go right, they probably won’t even have two [1,000-yard receivers]. Again, that’s a good thing. If this team is going to be a 10-11-12 win team, they need to be running the ball and running out the clock in the fourth quarter, not passing the ball around. Is it possible? Yes, but it’s not a good thing.”

But for now, the lawfirm of Cooper, Gallup, and Lamb should absolutely have their sights set on 1,000 apiece. In fact, so should Jarwin. And Elliott should go ahead and get his “Feed Me” bowl all cleaned up and ready for another big helping of touches. And, heck, why not let 2020 be the year that Pollard breaks out, too?

There are boatloads of yards to go around for this season’s Cowboys offense. Let the opposing defenses be the ones to try to guess which playmakers are going to be the ones to get them on any given week.

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