Cowboys downplay Ezekiel Elliott's two fumbles against the Redskins
When the Dallas Cowboys drafted Ezekiel Elliott fourth overall, they expected to get a dynamic running back who could carry the offense next to Tony Romo. The Cowboys also knew they were getting a player with a track record of protecting the football.
While at Ohio State, Elliott fumbled it just four times. In two career NFL games, he’s coughed up the rock twice – one of which was lost. The second of the two came at a crucial moment in Sunday’s contest with the Cowboys trailing by three and Dak Prescott orchestrating a potential game-winning drive.
Fortunately, Doug Free fell on the loose ball and kept the drive alive, but it could have been disastrous had the Cowboys not recovered it. Elliott never saw another snap after that and was benched by Jason Garrett.
“It really doesn’t matter what I did,” Elliott said, via the Star-Telegram. “I had those two fumbles, and that’s what was important.”
Elliott held himself accountable, which is good to see for a rookie who committed a few mistakes. He did have a solid game, though, rushing for 83 yards and a touchdown on 21 attempts. Those numbers, according to Elliott, don’t matter due to the fact that he fumbled it twice.
Garrett isn’t concerned about Elliott’s blunders on Sunday and it would be a complete shock to see them go with Alfred Morris over him in Week 3.
“Obviously you have to protect the football,” Garrett said. “That’s line one in football, and certainly line one for a running back. He’ll learn from the experiences.”
Jerry Jones echoed the same sentiment, explaining just how valuable Elliott is to the offense.
“Zeke does a lot for us, he actually opens it up for us out there,” Jerry Jones said. “We will take more advantage of it. Zeke is influencing very much the defenses we play. It was unfortunate that he had those back-to-back [fumbles], but boy he finishes hard. He runs hard, those are collisions out there. He’s making a lot of that happen so you get those.”
Stephen Jones is confident Elliott will fix the fumbling issues, which isn’t hard to see happening. Again, Elliott had just four fumbles in his career with the Buckeyes, so he’ll certainly clean up that aspect of his game.
“Obviously he’s got to fix [the fumbles] and he will,” Jones said. “But it doesn’t take an expert to see he has a lot of skills out there and he’s going to continue to get better.”
