It is officially official. Dallas Cowboys running back Ezekiel Elliott’s six game suspension for “conduct detrimental to the league” as a violation of the NFL’s personal conduct policy has been upheld by appeal arbitrator Harold Henderson.
Ezekiel Elliott 6 game suspension has been upheld by Harold Henderson, per source
— Chris Mortensen (@mortreport) September 6, 2017
Conflicting reports throughout this chaotic day have varied, claiming before 4 PM EST (the NFL office’s business hours) that Henderson had reached his decision. The Elliott camp was understandably upset about this delay, as the NFL was pretty clearly working to file the decision in such a way to get Ezekiel’s immediate date in a Texas court pushed back and potentially moved to New York or another favorable spot for the league.
Now, it is being reported that Henderson made his final decision after today’s initial court hearings – where Judge Mazzant was reportedly critical (hmm) of the NFL’s process throughout a 13 month investigation into Ezekiel Elliott resulting in this six game suspension that will still allow him to play this Sunday night against the New York Giants.
Elliott will play Sunday against the Giants. Judge will rule by 5 pm Friday on injunction.
— Kate Hairopoulos (@khairopoulos) September 6, 2017
Essentially, there is still quite a long way to go for Ezekiel Elliott in his fight against the NFL, and while the surface has not been scratched in court an initial decision has been made that his appeal to the league did little but delay the inevitable that an ugly public battle is in forthcoming.
Cowboys Nation will still get to watch Ezekiel Elliott play football in five days, and will still be refreshing Twitter for weeks to come as the latest news out of the courts surfaces.
We knew this was going to be the outcome seeing that Henderson is in Commissioner Mara’s…I mean Goodell’s pocket.
I hope Zek sues the NFL and exposes them…This whole investigation was one sided and they ignored all of the factual information…The fact that the accuser, Tiffany Thompson, got caught lying about this whole situation, attempted to extort money from him, and tried to get several people to lie for her…One of her friends came forward as did one of her family members and told the truth…Zek also had all of the text messages proven her false accusations…This is all a joke…Goodell should be fired over this, after all he is the commissioner