In a year of disappointment Elliott gets a shot at redemption
Ezekiel Elliott has circulated photos of himself running on the beach. His abs, which he’s only too eager to reveal, are rippled like a washboard. He spent the past six weeks in Cabo San Lucas, Mexico, training like his athletic career depended on it.
And perhaps it did.
Elliott returns to the Dallas Cowboys for a game against Seattle on Sunday afternoon that’s critical to the team’s playoff hopes.
The Metroplex is restive not just because their star running back has been punished for abusing women but because he hasn’t been in the best physical shape to play football in the limited time he’s had to play it.
Elliott’s reputation is in tatters. He couldn’t be elected dogcatcher. In Alabama.
After leading the NFL in rushing in 2016, Elliott was the subject of a league investigation of alleged physical assault against women, which seems to be the most popular crime in America. Man as hunter, woman as prey. It’s been going on for centuries, largely ignored by law enforcement and journalism alike.
In this century it’s a crime hushed by secret payoffs and confidentiality agreements. But this year we’ve seen a rollout of celebrities — politicians, actors, athletes, journalists – brought down – or not — by failure to control their lust.
NFL scandal du jour: Jerry Richardson giving up the Carolina Panthers after being accused of sexually harassing women.
Elliott has maintained his innocence, but there was video/audio of him tugging at a woman’s clothing to expose her breast during a parade where the crowd booed his action. Am I going to believe my eyes or his lies?
And that was the least of the malfeasance he was alleged to have committed. The claims against him began appearing before he played his first game for the Cowboys, who have a history of forgiving transgressions in talented athletes.
So Elliott returns from Elba to land on a hot seat. Patience is running out. This was noted by Cowboys owner Jerry Jones: “He knows his fans have had an up and down with him here.”
Stephen Jones, who is the Cowboys’ de facto general manager even though his dad retains the title, said, “When he left for suspension, his goal was to get in much better shape, certainly get his mind right.”
The Cowboys were 3-3 without Zeke, and they were lucky to do that well. They beat mediocre Oakland 20-17 on Sunday night when Derek Carr fumbled the ball out of the end zone in the final minute, causing a likely Oakland touchdown to be a touchback, Dallas ball.
Even if Elliott is back to his best form, the Cowboys at 8-6 are longshots to make the playoffs. They must leapfrog three teams in two weeks.
But this is a strange year in which odds are very fluid and there are no standout teams, what with the steamroller of injuries we’ve seen. The one team that seemed in a class by itself was the Philadelphia Eagles, but that was before they lost their MVP candidate, Carson Wentz.
The way I see it, in this parity-afflicted season the 10 best teams are within a field goal of each other: LA Rams, Minnesota, New England, Pittsburgh, New Orleans, Philadelphia, Carolina, Baltimore, Jacksonville (yes, Jacksonville) and Dallas, if it has the sleek 2016 edition of Elliott, not the clunky 2017 model.
There was no easy way out of the predicament in which Elliott placed himself. But he did the right thing by accepting the suspension, escaping to Mexico to run himself into shape and return to football in time, perhaps, to salvage the season.
If that’s asking too much, at least a fit Elliott can show the Cowboys’ fans what they’ve been missing. So far, 2017 has been a year in which he’s shown us one disappointment after another, and there’s not much left in it. There’s time, though, for him to start turning his life around.
Hopefully those photos from the Mexican beach show a young man of 22 who has learned that improving himself off the football field is more important than what he does on it.