Dallas Cowboys RB Ezekiel Elliott ruled out of 49ers game. Will he play again in 2020?
Dallas Cowboys running back Ezekiel Elliott was made inactive for Sunday’s game against the San Francisco 49ers due to a painful calf strain that kept him out of practice all week.
Now, the question is will he play again in 2020 or will he sit out the remaining two games of the season?
Tony Pollard will start in Elliott’s place, with Rico Dowdle serving as his backup.
It’s the first game Elliott has missed in his career due to injury.
He missed six games in 2017 because of an NFL suspension and he was a healthy scratch in the final game of the 2016 and 2018 seasons.
Elliott’s absence for the 49ers game is a continuation of a down season for the two-time NFL rushing champion.
Elliott ranks seventh in the NFL with 832 yards rushing. He needs just 168 to reach 1,000 yards for the fourth time in five seasons in the league.
But it can’t mask the continued deterioration of his production.
He has topped 100 yards in a game just once in 2020. But eight times he has rushed for 63 yards or less in a game.
Elliott averaged 108.7 yards per game as a rookie in 2016, but those totals have declined every year since. He had 98.3 rushing yards per game in 2017, 95.6 in 2018, 84.8 in 2019 before plummeting to 64.0 this season.
His 3.9 yards per carry in 2020 are a career low. After scoring five rushing touchdowns in the first five games, he’s had none on the ground in the last eight.
Part of his decreased production in 2020 can be attributed to injury. He played with a groin injury before the calf strain that limited his snaps in last week’s 30-7 victory against the Cincinnati Bengals. Elliott also hasn’t shown the same burst as he has in past years.
The injuries to quarterback Dak Prescott and the team’s three best lineman in tackles Tyron Smith and La’el Collins and guard Pro Bowl guard Zack Martin has also hindered Elliott’s production.
This story was originally published December 20, 2020 at 10:58 AM.
