Dallas Cowboys 2018 Training Camp Profile: Ezekiel Elliott

Losing Ezekiel Elliott to suspension last season was the beginning of the end for the Dallas Cowboys. With a clean slate, can Elliott get even better in 2018?

Sure, the Dallas Cowboys weren’t playing their best football at the start of last season when running back Ezekiel Elliott was on the field full-time. It is also true that when Elliott was gone for six games due to suspension – though there was some success – the offense didn’t have the same spark as it did when Elliott was in the starting lineup, either.

The upcoming 2018 NFL season is a clean slate for the Cowboys and especially a clean slate for Elliott, as all of his legal issues are behind him and he served the aforementioned six-game suspension, so the dark cloud made by NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell and Co. won’t be hovering over them.

In limited play last season, Elliott still nearly rushed for 1,000 yards in 10 games, finishing with 983 yards and seven touchdowns on 242 carries in what was just his second season in the NFL. Elliott also led the NFL with 98.3 yards rushing per game and even had two receiving scores with 26 receptions for 269 yards, including a 72-yard reception.

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Elliott also cut his fumble numbers down to just one in 2017, compared to his rookie season of ’16 where he had five fumbles in 15 starts.

Looking at Elliott’s career totals after two seasons — 25 games played — they include 564 carries for 2,614 yards, averaging 4.6 yards per carry. He’s scored 22 touchdowns and has led the NFL in both seasons in yards rushing per game with 108.7 in 2016 and the aforementioned 98.3 ypg last season for a two-year average of 104.6 ypg. Elliott’s two-year total in yards from scrimmage is 3,246 yards.

As mentioned before, with all the distraction that was the 2017 season now in the rearview mirror, it is now time to see what Elliott can offer the Cowboys in 2018, which should be a great amount. Better yet, Elliott has all the potential in the world to exceed how he played his rookie season, and that could be very scary for the teams on the Cowboys’ schedule this season.

If the quarterback and wide receivers show improvement form the unit that was on the roster a year ago, then they will help make Elliott a better player, taking some of the pressure off him, but that will work both ways because Elliott makes his teammates play at a higher level as well.

Gregg Rosenthal of NFL.com seems to believe in Elliott as well, ranking him as the top running back in the NFL entering the 2018 season. Rosenthal wrote this of Elliott in a recent article:

"“The game appears to come easy for Elliott, who is already the league’s best pure runner at age 22. There should be another level of play he can reach, and this should be the season he reaches it.“"

Whether the game comes easily or not for Elliott is up for debate, but there are times where he certainly does make the game look easy. Granted, Elliott does have one of the top offensive lines in all of football, and though others have had success behind that line when Elliott wasn’t on the field, the former No. 4 overall selection plays at an extra level and does things that others in the NFL just can’t do.

For Elliott in the upcoming 2018 season, if he’s on the field, the Cowboys will have success and so will Elliott. The question is how much success will he have? Will we see the player that averaged over five yards per carry in 2016, or will he be closer to the four-plus yards per carry he averaged in 2017?

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Look for Elliott to be playing with a chip on his shoulder after all that occurred last season. If that’s the case, the rest of the NFL had better be on notice because if the wide receivers pan out and take a little pressure off the rest of the offense, Elliott will reap the benefits and take control of the offense from the backfield once again.

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