Remember Jason Witten’s Cabo trip? How does he feel about Zeke being there now?
To his Cowboys teammates, running back Ezekiel Elliott’s decision to train in Cabo San Lucas while in a contract holdout is no a big deal.
Elliott trained in the Mexican resort city during his six-game suspension in 2017. So the Cowboys are not worried about him being in shape whenever he returns.
“I’m a little jealous that he’s in Cabo,” center Travis Frederick joked. “That’s a great place. You saw what happened the last time he went to Cabo. He came back and he was really ready to go, in really great shape. I’ve been to where he goes in Cabo. He’s got a heck of a setup down there. So I’m certainly not worried about him being in any bad shape coming back.”
While tight end Jason Witten agrees with Frederick in believing that Elliott will return in great shape, as he did before, he understands the bad optics of public perception a trip to Cabo right now can cause.
Witten took a trip there with quarterback Tony Romo, linebacker Bobby Carpenter and offensive lineman Marco Rivera during the wild card round of the 2007 NFL playoffs.
The Cowboys had the best record in the league and had a bye so the group, along with their significant others, decided to go on a getaway.
The first sign of trouble came when their trip was published nationally, thanks to photos taken by the paparazzi, who were following then-Romo girlfriend Jessica Simpson.
The Cowboys, who were favored to reach the Super Bowl for the first time since 1995, then lost to the Giants in their first playoff game. The Giants went on to win the Super Bowl and that trip proved to be a narrative that followed the Romo-era Cowboys of not getting it done when it mattered the most because of off-field mistakes or poor decisions.
“Yeah, my situation certainly, absolutely many years ago,” Witten said with a laugh. “Personally these guys don’t even remember that. They’re too young to know that story. Perception is reality, I guess. My lesson learned from that point. Honestly that was a different situation. It was during the playoff (bye) week.”
Witten added that Elliott’s situation is different and no one is worried about it being a bad decision for him to be in Cabo.
“I know he’s going to be training, he’s going to be ready to play,” Witten said. “I don’t know if we have a guy on this football team that loves football and enjoys being one of the guys in the locker room and in these meetings [more than Zeke]. And during training camp he’s a little bit of a jokester.
“He’s going to work hard and he’s going to be prepared and I know he’s preparing himself to carry the workload like he has his entire career. I don’t see that being an issue of where he’s doing his training at.”
This story was originally published August 1, 2019 at 6:00 AM.
