The Ezekiel Elliott period seems to be over in Dallas.
Per a supply near the scenario, the Cowboys are set to half methods with the two-time NFL speeding champ and the working again is making ready to begin recent with a brand new crew.
The transfer might come as quickly as Wednesday afternoon when the league’s 2003 calendar formally begins at 3 p.m. and groups are required to be underneath the wage cap.
Elliott’s future has been unsure for the reason that finish of the 2022 season.
Elliott, who got here to the Cowboys because the No. 4 choose within the 2016 NFL Draft, is about to rely $16.4 million towards the 2023 wage cap with a non assured $10.4 million base wage.
After speeding for a career-low 876 yards and averaging a career-low 3.9 yards per carry, whereas watching Tony Pollard surpass him because the crew’s major working again, a pay reduce or launch was inevitable.
And when the Cowboys gave Pollard, the franchise tag of $10.1 million, ballooning the wage for the working again room to an NFL-record excessive $27.68 million in 2023, at the present time of reckoning was at hand.
Whereas proprietor Jerry Jones stated on the NFL Mix final month that he wish to discover away proceed the with Elliott and Pollard at working again in 2023, discovering a quantity appropriate for each side proved to be a bridge too far.
Slicing Elliott saves the Cowboys $4.86 million. In the event that they designate him a post-June 1 reduce, they’d save $10.9 million.
After speeding for greater than 1,000 yards in three of his first 4 seasons, together with two speeding titles, Elliott has solely surpassed that quantity as soon as prior to now three seasons.
His decline got here after he signed a six-year, $90 million contract in 2019, thus has inflicting the narrative about Elliott’s effort and play that belied his worth to the franchise as a pacesetter.
The ensures resulted in Elliott’s contract after final season, forcing him to enter the 2022 season together with his future hanging over his head.
After taking part in by means of {a partially} torn posterior cruciate ligament in his proper knee, Elliott missed two video games in 2022 after struggling a hyperextension of the identical knee. The working again termed the harm torn medial collateral ligament.
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Elliott performed the ultimate 10 video games of the season with a brace on the knee.
He didn’t want offseason surgical procedure and can begin anew wholesome in 2023 with one other crew.
Elliott ends his Cowboys profession with 8,262 speeding yards and 68 speeding touchdowns and 80 complete touchdowns, rating third in franchise historical past in all three classes behind Corridor of Famers Emmitt Smith and Tony Dorsett.
The choice with Elliott places the Cowboys squarely available in the market for a working again within the draft and free company with Pollard on the hook in 2023 on a one-year franchise tag and 2022 undrafted rookie Malik Davis as the one different working again on the roster.