4. Ezekiel Elliott, Dallas Cowboys
Elliott led the league in carries and rushing yards in 2018, but he was even more productive in certain ways last season, and this was reflected in his Football Outsiders metrics — he jumped from ninth to first in DYAR (FO’s cumulative efficiency metric) and from 20th to fourth in DVOA (FO’s per-play efficiency metric). Elliott scored 14 total touchdowns to nine the year before, he broke 48 rushing tackles to 41 in 2018, and his only real downgrade was in explosive plays — he had 28 carries of 15 or more yards in 2018, and only 12 in 2019.
That said, the explosive plays were still evident, and quite often, a product of the fact that if you don’t wrap-tackle Elliott, things are not going to go well for you.
Arm-tackling Ezekiel Elliott: A Study in Failure pic.twitter.com/oK5193qElp
— Doug Farrar (@NFL_DougFarrar) July 27, 2020
Elliott’s only potential issue in 2020 and beyond is that new head coach Mike McCarthy has exhibited some interesting decision-making when determining the value of his running backs — as we just detailed when writing about Aaron Jones. And with first-round pick CeeDee Lamb joining Amari Cooper and Michael Gallup to form perhaps the NFL’s best receiver trio, Elliott may not get the carries he has in previous years. But we’ll go ahead and assume that even Mike McCarthy will be able to figure out who Dallas’ offense goes around.