Originally posted on February 27, 2022 on Out Of Bounds
Many Cowboys fan have been terribly misguided in their belief that Ezekiel Elliott is washed up and that he’s been terrible since signing his 2nd contract in 2019. Some have even said the he got lazy and doesn’t care about football anymore. In fact, it’s even been alleged that Zeke was satisfied with winning a national championship in college and that the NFL was all about money and being a celebrity for him. Also, over the past couple of years, people have been calling for his backup Tony Pollard to replace him in the starting lineup. Even the media has gotten in on it.
Some people even went as far as calling Zeke a bust and a good example of why you don’t take a running back within the top 5 picks in the draft or give them 2nd contracts. I’m sorry, but a guy that’s been a 2-time rushing champion, 3-time Pro Bowler, and the №3 all-time rusher in his team’s history is not exactly a bust. Granted, he hasn’t accomplished all he could have in his 6 years in the NFL, but it’s definitely not all on Zeke. His production has even gone down in his last 3 seasons, but here are the reasons for it:
*Several injuries in his last couple of seasons
*The demise of the offensive line
*The play calling
*Splitting carries with Tony Pollard
I have seen an increasing number of complaints from lots of Cowboys fans on message boards and social media over the last 3 years complain that we should have taken Jalen Ramsey at №4 in 2016 and then Derrick Henry in the 2nd round. Those chants got even louder after King Henry’s 2000-yard season. It’s almost a guarantee that his monster season wouldn’t have happened if he played for the Cowboys instead of the Titans, especially with Kellen Moore as his offensive coordinator. In fact, the results wouldn’t look much different than they do now.
In other words, Derrick Henry more than likely would have been misused the same way Ezekiel Elliott has. He’s no more suited for all the delayed runs up the middle than Zeke is. In fact, the results with King Henry might be worse because he’s even slower to get up to speed than Zeke. I’m almost certain that if Zeke had been drafted by the Titans, he would have sat behind DeMarco Murray for a year or 2, and would be tearing up the NFL with fresh legs right about now. Then Cowboys fans everywhere would be mad at the front office for not drafting him.
Don’t get me wrong, I’m a fan of Derrick Henry and rooted for him every week when he was playing his college football at Alabama, and would have been extremely happy if the Cowboys drafted him. But I won’t act like having him would change Kellen Moore’s offense. It’s possible that it would. But if having a 2-time rushing champion at your disposal and a 31–0 record when you run the ball more than you pass doesn’t scream “RUN THE BALL!!”, I don’t know what else will.
It’s not a stretch to say that Ezekiel Elliott was arguably the best player in football his first 3 seasons. If he had played for a smarter (for lack of a better word) coach, he would already have at least 1 Super Bowl ring by now. That’s why he was worth the №4 pick. I can’t put all the blame on Jason Garrett, but he did waste Zeke’s rookie year with many of the choices he made. Roger Goodell stole a year from Zeke with that bogus suspension, which is another story within itself. Then Jerry Jones stole half of another year with his “receiver-by-committee” garbage.
In Zeke’s first 3 years, he was talked about being a potential 2,000-yard rusher, and quite honestly should have been one as a rookie. But again, going away from what’s working is nothing new to the Cowboys, which brings me to my next point. Admittedly, the last 3 seasons haven’t been Zeke’s best, and there are some things he could have done better, such as seeking out less contact to preserve his body more, but let’s not act like his decrease in production is all on him.
The lazy and popular thing to do is saying that Zeke stopped caring and mailed it in once he got paid, which conveniently glosses over the real root of his decline. When the Cowboys gave Zeke his money, they also changed the offense and became a passing team. Zeke and the running game were the strength of the team from 2016 to 2018, but in true Cowboys fashion, they decided to fix what wasn’t broken. Why would you stop featuring your star running back after paying him all that money? That’s where the problems started.
So, what happened to Ezekiel Elliott since 2018? 2 words: Kellen Moore. Him taking over as offensive coordinator in 2019 was the worst thing to happen to Zeke. It was compounded in 2020 when the Cowboys hired Mike McCarthy to replace Jason Garrett as head coach. THIS is the real reason Zeke’s production went down. They gave Zeke his money, then turned around and hired coaches that favor the passing game and reduce the running game to an afterthought. I have said to anybody who would listen for the last 3 years that if this was the direction the Cowboys wanted to go in, they never should have re-signed Zeke. They’re wasting his career and their money.
They gave the guy that’s been the focal point of the offense a contract that made him the highest paid ever at his position (at the time) and then turned around and changed the offense, going away from their identity and the approach that had brought them the most success in recent years. Where’s the logic in re-signing the focal point of your offense and then switching to a new system that’s not tailored to fit him? If I’m giving a guy a contract like that, I’m going all in to maximize my return on that investment. My first 2 priorities would have been finding the right coaches to maximize Zeke’s talents and maintaining the offensive line.
The worst part about Kellen Moore being promoted to offensive coordinator was that he got the job before he was ready. Think of it like giving somebody keys to a Ferrari before they’re qualified to drive it. The car can still go fast, but it ends up in the ditch a lot because the guy driving it can’t handle 850 horsepower. Moore had zero experience as a quarterback coach, but was chosen over proven QB coaches. Then after only 1 year in the position, he gets promoted to OC, another job he had zero experience in and with more responsibilities, over proven OCs.
In going from a practice squad quarterback to an offensive coordinator in 2 short years, Moore skipped quite a few steps in his development. I put all of this on Jerry Jones. This is basically a repeat of the Jason Garrett learning-on-the-job situation. In both cases Jerry handicapped his players by hiring former players that he likes and is comfortable with over coaches that are more qualified for the job. Trusting an inexperienced and unproven coach with that much talent, with most of your core players in their prime years, is just flat out reckless any way you look at it.
Kellen Moore as the Cowboys offensive coordinator reminds me in a lot of ways when we had David Shula calling the plays and Emmitt Smith was his running back. To me, this is history repeating itself in terms of both coordinators having star RBs that they don’t know how to use. They both have blind spots to running the football. Shula’s inability to fit Emmitt into his offense cost the Cowboys a playoff spot in 1990 and ultimately led to his exit. The Cowboys brought in Norv Turner to replace him in an effort to make the most out of Emmitt. The rest is history.
I would love to see what Zeke could do if he got his own “Norv Turner”, an offensive coordinator that knows how to maximize his abilities. I would even like to see what Norv himself would do with Zeke, given his track record with guys like Emmitt, Eric Dickerson, LaDainian Tomlinson, and Adrian Peterson. Much like Emmitt had in David Shula, Zeke has in Kellen Moore an OC that doesn’t use the running game enough and uses his backs incorrectly. It’s not just that Moore doesn’t call enough running plays or knows when to call them, it’s like he has no feel for what type of runs to call.
In my opinion, Moore’s biggest flaw is that he doesn’t show anywhere near the originality and creativity with the running game as he does with the passing game. Nor does he have the same attention to detail. In addition to not wanting to run the ball, Moore also doesn’t like to feature 1 receiver or focus on favorable matchups. His mindset is to “take what the defense gives you”. With that much talent at your disposal, you should be TAKING WHAT YOU WANT and imposing your will on defenses, not letting them dictate to you.
What bothers me most about Moore is how he uses Ezekiel Elliott. Zeke is a downhill runner that’s at his best when he can take handoffs with a full head of steam, and even better when he has a fullback in front of him. Since Moore’s been in charge, he’s been getting all these bland shotgun delayed handoffs. These slow-developing running plays have been frustrating. When your O-line is getting beat like ours did often this past season, you can’t ask your RBs to dance around in the backfield and look for holes. They won’t be there. With a runner like Zeke, you call some drive-blocking plays and let your line hammer the defense. Then let your RB hit it downhill and see what happens. Even if you don’t get a big run right away, eventually the defensive line wears down and the dam will break.
The worst part about these shotgun running plays is how often they seem to be called in short yardage situations. The main problem with running in shotgun is what it does to the RB. It forces him to take the ball without a head of steam, at a standstill, which robs him of a lot of his power. The object of short yardage situations is to hammer your O-line and for your RB to move the pile to get the yardage for a 1st down. That’s done much better when the runner has momentum built up when he gets to the line of scrimmage instead of taking a handoff at a dead stop.
The thing that’s most deflating about the Cowboys offense is how little we even try to establish any kind of rushing attack. There is clearly no commitment to running the ball from Kellen Moore. We almost never run the ball 2 plays in a row. It seems like he’s allergic to it. No matter if a running play gains 3 yards or 30, you can bet the next play will be a pass. He’s notorious for going away from it when the offense gets inside the opponent’s 20-yard line, then having to settle for a field goal. Moore’s stubbornness with the running game can probably be traced back to him throwing the ball 80% of the time in college and throwing it 80% of the time in the NFL whenever he got to play. That’s all he knows.
One other problem with the running plays that Moore calls is that there is no purpose to most of them. They seem to be just placeholders until he can get to his next set of passing plays. That’s what the delayed shotgun handoff up the middle is to me. And with the O-line doing slide steps, the RB is supposed to find the hole. But most times there won’t be a hole, especially since defensive coordinators figured out that pattern and always have at least 1 guy shooting the gap behind our strong side. As a result, there’s almost always a free runner in our backfield on running plays.
After the season opener in Tampa Bay, Moore’s “yards are yards” quote when he was trying to justify calling only 15 runs in that game told me that he understands ABSOLUTELY NOTHING about the cumulative effects that having 300+ pound guys beating up on a defense with a 225-pound running back slamming into them has over time. Run blocking attacks the defender and pushes him. Pass blocking steps back and lets the defender come at the blocker. It’s about time he acknowledges the value of allowing his offensive line to fire out into the defensive line and dishing out blows instead of taking them on every play. A 5-yard run takes a much bigger toll on a defense than a 5-yard pass. All yards ARE NOT created equal.
Again, even if you’re not getting big yardage, every time you let your O-line hit the D-line in the mouth, you take a little bit of starch out of them. Fighting through double teams, legs getting rolled up, and bodies falling on top of them takes a serious toll on them. As long as you’re getting at least 3 yards a run, you keep doing it because it sets up everything else on your offense. The 3-yard runs gradually become 5-yard runs, then late in the game they turn into 10+ yard runs. As long as your defense doesn’t let the game get away, you should ALWAYS have the running game in play.
Every running back that’s ever carried a football will tell you that he needs a few carries in a row to get into a groove. It also gives him a feel for the defense and how his O-line is blocking. No RB will be consistently productive if he only gets 5 or 6 carries a half. This is especially true for a runner like Ezekiel Elliott. He’s a definitely a runner that gets stronger as the game goes on. Splitting carries also makes it harder for Zeke to get into a rhythm. What also hurts him is that his coaches don’t have any kind of feel for when to do substitutions.
The coaches like to give the RBs an arbitrary series at a time. I personally can’t stand seeing a hot RB on the sidelines. It used to drive me crazy seeing Alfred Morris or Darren McFadden in the game after Zeke got rolling. Say what you want about Zeke tapping out a lot, but he’s not always tired or banged up when he gets pulled from the game. Zeke did have a bad knee for most of the 2021 season, but 9 carries doesn’t give him a chance to shine. The biggest issue is having an OC that doesn’t understand a run offense, which has killed us time and time again.
In the past 3 seasons, Zeke has carried the ball 20 or more times in just 12 games, and he got over 100 yards in 8 of them. He only got those numbers in 2 games this past season. When Zeke has carried the ball 20 or more times in his career, he’s averaged 104 yards a game and 4.7 yards per carry. It’s hard to do much with 9 carries and an OC that keeps abandoning the running game. When we give Zeke the ball, he delivers and we win. But in spite of that, the coaches want to make us a passing team, and it’s failing miserably. Again, if they don’t plan on using Zeke, why did they pay him?
