National Football League

Jerry Jones, Mike McCarthy open to Ezekiel Elliott returning to Cowboys

Published Mar. 27, 2023 7:01 p.m. ET

Ezekiel Elliott might not have to move after all.

Dallas Cowboys owner Jerry Jones and head coach Mike McCarthy both suggested that Elliott could return to the team following his release earlier in March.

"I don’t want to ever leave him hanging or fans hanging or anybody, but I wouldn't take any possibility off the table," Jones told reporters at the NFL owners meetings when asked if Elliott could return.

McCarthy gave a similar answer when asked by reporters if Elliott could return to the Cowboys.

"Yeah, definitely," McCarthy replied. "I think you always keep the door open. Absolutely."

The Cowboys' decision to release Elliott was a cap-clearing move following an underwhelming season. Elliott had a $16.7 million cap hit for the 2023 season and the Cowboys saved more than $10 million by releasing him with a post-June 1 designation.

Even though the Cowboys created a lot of cap space by releasing Elliott, who had career lows in rushing yards (876) and yards per carry (3.8), McCarthy said there was some difficulty in making the decision to release Elliott.

"You know, no one felt good about that," McCarthy said. "I mean, Zeke has such a bright light to him too. He's a great teammate. There's so much love for him in the building, but you get to these spots, you know, the longer you're in this league, these are tough decisions. Very difficult decisions. Very difficult for Dak [Prescott]. You know, I've had a number of conversations with Dak, but it's not easy."

As McCarthy described the difficulty of releasing Elliott, Jones said the team didn't approach the running back about taking a pay cut. The Cowboys placed their franchise tag, which is worth $10.1 million, on Tony Pollard.

Investing so much money on two running backs would've made it more difficult for the Cowboys to keep Elliott at the price tag he was at.

"It was all about making the adjustment, principally because of the cap because of where we were," Jones said. "Love to have him but again, with what we need to do to make our cap work and what we can do to really, in our mind, improve through scheme or another player, that was worth us saving that money on the cap."

Elliott reportedly narrowed down his list of potential next teams to the New York Jets, Philadelphia Eagles and Cincinnati Bengals last week. But Jets coach Robert Saleh and Bengals coach Zac Taylor both made comments recently suggesting that they were fine with their teams' current running back situations.

While a return to Dallas is still on the table for Elliott, Jones feels satisfied with how the running back's seven-year tenure went with the Cowboys.

"Zeke gave us everything he had and more," Jones said. "And we gave him everything we had and more. So that’s the way you’d like to end it."

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