Ezekiel Elliott wants 1,000 yards, but is focused on helping Cowboys reach playoffs
Dallas Cowboys running back Ezekiel Elliott needs 63 rushing yards in Sunday’s regular-season finale at the New York Giants to reach 1,000 for the season.
After everything he has been through in 2020 — battling COVID-19 in June, then fumblitis, then a hamstring strain, questions about his lack of juice and a calf strain to go along with the team’s mounting losses — reaching the universally accepted status marker for running backs would be quite meaningful to him.
That would give him four 1,000-yard seasons in his first five years in the league, and he would join Hall of Famers Emmitt Smith and Tony Dorsett — who actually did it in every one of his first five seasons — as the only Cowboys do so in the 60-year history of the franchise.
So, yeah, after enduring a season he personally ranks almost as challenging as 2017, when he battled the NFL in court for a personal conduct policy suspension, it’s a milestone Elliott wants — even if his current stats are a far cry from the lofty ones he posted a couple of years back as the league’s two-time rushing champ.
“To get 1,000, it would mean a lot,” Elliott said. “I mean I’m not really worried about it. I want to win this football game and get a shot in the playoffs. But I mean, getting 1,000 yards in this league, it’s not easy. It’s definitely not easy. And it is an accomplishment, but it’s not really something I’m focused on.”
Elliott’s focus is on helping the Cowboys (6-9) extend their season-long winning streak to four games by beating the Giants (5-10) and possibly get into the playoffs as the NFC East champs by night’s end. Should they win their noon game, they would need to wait to see if the Washington Football Team (6-9) to loses the host Philadelphia Eagles (4-10-1). That game kicks off at 7:20 p.m.
And throughout his and his team’s struggles, doing whatever he could to get better and help the Cowboys win has been his primary focus.
He has refused to let his personal problems and criticisms from the outside get in the way.
“The way I just kind of look at it is we can’t control what we can’t control,” Elliott said. “We can’t control the injuries. We can’t control that we’re facing a pandemic. All we can do is worry about what we can control and make the best of it. That’s how I attack every day. That’s how I’m going to keep attacking.”
It hasn’t been easy for Elliott starting with the COVID-19 diagnosis in June that setback his preparation for the season. He played a role in the team’s early struggles with a career-high five lost fumbles. And then quarterback Dak Prescott, his best friend, was lost for the season in Week 5 due to injury, and then compound that with the decimation of the Cowboys’ once dominant offensive line. Tackles La’el Collins and Tyron Smith were placed on injured reserve and Pro Bowl guard Zack Martin has missed the better of seven games with injuries and is not expected to play against the Giants.
“When you look at COVID and how COVID affected this year,” Elliott said. “And then you look at the season itself, losing LT before the season started. Losing Tyron. Dak going down. Everything that’s [been] thrown at us, seems like it’s been such an emotional rollercoaster. But it’s definitely great to be still in it. It’s definitely great to have a shot to go win the division. That’s what we’re focused on this week.”
The Cowboys are still in it because they never quit. They never gave up. They kept coming to work. And no one embodied the fight more than Elliott.
Even when the yards were hard to come by and fumbles kept happening, Elliott kept trotting out there.
“Zeke’s a competitor,” center Joe Looney said. “You know what you’re going to get with him every Sunday you line up. I said this to somebody on Sunday. I was like, ‘If I was playing in a football game, I’d want to put on a helmet and have Ezekiel Elliott as my running back.’
“This league is tough,” he added. “There’s no guarantees in it, and you’re going to have your ups and downs. I think it just shows what kind of character he has. He was going through a down phase earlier in the season and always staying positive. Just that upbeat character he is. It just shows what kind of man he is.”
And you’ll excuse Elliott if he is taking a little pride in how the Cowboys are finishing the season, and how they have stayed true to their beliefs in the face of their challenges and naysayers. He was the main one saying the Cowboys still had a chance to win the NFC East. He said it when they lost four straight games and were 2-7. He said when they were 3-9, just a month ago.
“I think it’s funny, I was sitting up here saying, we still have a shot,” Elliott said to reporters. “I’m saying, ‘We’re still in it.’ You guys are like, ‘Yeah, right.’ I can just hear it in your tone of voice. I’ve said it a couple of times since then. Everyone’s like, ‘Yeah, right.’ And now we’re here Week 17 and we’re right there in the mix. It just definitely means a lot. It shows the type of men we have in this locker room just for us not to give up when everyone else was, and put ourselves in position to still have a shot at winning the NFC East.”
The best part of it all for Elliott and the Cowboys is that he is heading into the final game feeling as well as he has all season, coming off arguably his best game of the season.
Elliott rushed 19 times for 105 yards in the 37-17 victory against the Eagles last Sunday. It was just his second 100-yard game of the season. He was fresh and spry, making defenders miss like he hadn’t in some time and he reeled off his longest run of the season, a 31-yarder, in the fourth quarter.
The fact that the performance came one week after he sat out the 41-33 victory over the 49ers was not lost on Elliott.
“Just me being the competitor I am, it was killing me just not being able to be out there,” Elliott said. “I was trying to do whatever I could to be out there, but just couldn’t get out there for that San Fran game. I think I definitely did need [the rest] and we saw last week just how fresh I felt and how fresh I looked. And, [it] definitely paid dividends.”
Now, he’s just 63 yards away from another 1,000-yard season, and more importantly a shot at a division title and the playoffs.
