The second year of Ezekiel Elliott's career didn't go as planned at all. The 2017 Dallas Cowboys struggled last season for many different reasons, including the fact that their superstar running back was suspended for four games.
Although it's not fair to put the blame of a wasted season exclusively on his absence, the Cowboys offense was definitely not the same without Zeke in the backfield. After all, he is indeed a game changer.
Despite every appeal filed by him and the NFLPA, he was unable to escape the punishment indicted by the NFL's infamous commissioner Roger Goodell. To say we didn't see it coming back then would be a complete lie, but it still came as painful news to digest.
It's impossible to know if Elliott did what he was accused of or not, and although we could speculate and discuss it for months, those four games will never come back. But at the end of the day, it's time to put that drama behind us.
Much love and thanks to Mr. Jones for standing behind me — as he does for all of his players. Great appreciation. Time to move on and look forward to a great season in '18.
— Ezekiel Elliott (@EzekielElliott) March 8, 2018
On Tuesday, Ezekiel Elliott took to Twitter to thank Jerry Jones for his support. It's well known that the Cowboys' front office supported Zeke throughout this “war” with the NFL. A war which also served as a “Jerry vs Roger” duel of sorts.
Earlier this week, Jerry Jones had to reimburse the NFL more than $2M in legal fees which stemmed from the Ezekiel Elliott case. If said power struggle between the Cowboys' owner and the NFL Commissioner will continue or not, we don't really know for sure. But that's another story.
As Ezekiel Elliott wrote in his tweet, it's time to move on and start thinking about the 2018 NFL season.
A season in which, one of the best players on this team's roster will be 100% focused on his job and will not be affected at all by outside noise. A year in which the Cowboys won't have to be concerned about their starting running back playing status.
Next season will be huge for Zeke. He fell short of the 1,000 yard mark in 2017 and one can only imagine he'll have the goal of putting up 2,000 in 2018. Elliott is among the NFL's finest running backs, along Le'Veon Bell and David Johnson.
This is a player who could very well end up being in the MVP conversation next season.
Ezekiel Elliott being suspended last year may have been unfair. But if we're looking at things from the bright side, last year's team probably wouldn't have gotten very far even if he had played. At least we're not concerned about him receiving the suspension in 2018, which would've probably been the case otherwise.
Now, it's time to wait and see what Ezekiel Elliott has in store for us in September.
