Michael Irvin: Cowboys should ‘shut it all down’ if they don’t pay Ezekiel Elliott
The fondness former Cowboys receiver Michael Irvin has for owner Jerry Jones is well documented.
Jones was his presenter for his induction into the Pro Football Hall of Fame in 2007.
But he is not siding with Jones in his battle with holdout running back Ezekiel Elliott, who is training in Cabo San Lucas instead of Cowboys training camp because of a dispute over his contract.
Irvin said the Cowboys should find a way to pay Elliott because they have no chance of competing for a Super Bowl without him, making all the other money they are spending a waste.
“It is all a wasted,” Irving said Tuesday in a visit to Cowboys camp with the NFL Network. “The money you are spending is not getting you where you want to go. So you saying we can’t pay Zeke because we have to pay all these other guys. Well, you might as well shut it all down. They are not going anywhere without Zeke. That is how important he is. We can all go home.”
Irving noted that Elliott has won two NFL rushing titles since joining the Cowboys as the fourth overall pick in 2016. He said he is the focal point of the offense and makes life easier for quarterback Dak Prescott.
Of course, Jones is taking a different stance with Elliott and even went as far to say recently that you don’t need the NFL leading rusher to win a Super Bowl.
“You don’t have to have a rushing champion to win a Super Bowl,” Jones said in an interview with CBS 11 Sports Sunday night. “That’s one of the dilemmas at running back is that the league knows that you can win Super Bowls and not have the Emmitt Smith back there or not have Zeke back there.
“Consequently, when we are looking at putting Zeke’s contract in place, we’ve got to realize that the ultimate goal is to win the Super Bowl. So, you’ve got to do all of the things along with having Zeke that allow you to have other players so that you can win the Super Bowl.”
Part of Elliott’s argument for a new contract is his importance to the offense as the NFL’s leading rusher in two of the last three seasons.
The last NFL rushing champ to win a Super Bowl was Terrell Davis with the Broncos in 1998.
Of course, what’s also true is that the Cowboys have never been to or won a Super Bowl without a rushing champion since Jones bought the team in 1989.
Smith became the first rushing champion to ever lead his team to the Super Bowl in 1992. He held out in a contract dispute for the 1993 season, missing the first two games - two losses by the Cowboys - before Jones signed him to the richest contract for a running back at the time.
He repeated as rushing champion in 1993 and the Cowboys repeated as Super Bowl champs.
He again led the league in rushing in 1995 in leading the Cowboys to their third Super Bowl title in the decade.
History has shown that teams in the NFL don’t need a rushing title to win a Super Bowl, but that has not been Jones’ experience in Dallas.
This story was originally published July 30, 2019 at 6:53 PM.
