Dallas Cowboys would not take a RB 4th again like they did with Ezekiel Elliott
Dallas Cowboys owner Jerry Jones was in a jovial mood on Monday during the team’s annual pre-draft press conference in advance of the 2023 NFL Draft, which begins Thursday and runs through Saturday.
Jones took a shot at vice president Stephen Jones, saying the bad picks were his fault and he himself was responsible for the good picks.
He praised vice president of player personnel Will McClay for handling the scouting department but when asked if he would ever be promoted to general manager, Jones reminded everyone that the Cowboys have a general manager.
Jones is officially owner/general manager of the Cowboys and says McClay can get the job when he can write the big checks.
He saved his best zinger for last when he said “Drafting is not our problem, coaching is,” while sitting next to head coach Mike McCarthy.
Jones was kidding, of course. He lauded McCarthy for his input and the lessons of football he learns from McCarthy sitting in the draft room.
What wasn’t so funny was the lesson Jones and the Cowboys have admittedly learned in hindsight about the declining value of the running back position since taking Ezekiel Elliott fourth overall in 2016.
The Cowboys cut Elliott in March because of his declining production and because of his high salary.
Elliott, 27, was set to count $16.7 million against the salary cap with a $10.9 million non-guaranteed base salary. He had a career-low 876 rushing yards in 2022.
Despite Elliott winning two rushing titles, leaving as the team’s third all-time leading rusher behind Hall of Famers Emmitt Smith and Tony Dorsett and being the consummate team player, Jones and the Cowboys admitted they wouldn’t take a running back like Elliott that high again.
“What comes to my mind when we have this conversation is the physicalness and the injury factor,” Jones said. “You can have one and the next play not have one at a higher possibility there than maybe at another position. There’s a bunch of nuances that go into this running back conversation.
”Zeke is a good football player. He’s still an outstanding football player. I’ll say the word, ‘outstanding’ football player. He’s too high for us, where he was. That has a lot to do with this conversation about running back.”
The Cowboys contend Jones was talking about Elliott’s salary, rather than his draft position in 2016, when he spoke of him being “too high for where he was.”
But the point is the same, the Cowboys are not drafting a running back that high again.
It’s a conversation for the Cowboys because they will likely draft a running back at some point in the 2023 draft to replace Elliott as a complement to newly entrenched starter Tony Pollard.
It could come in the first round with Texas star Bijan Robinson; it could come as late as the fourth round with TCU’s Kendre Miller an option in the middle rounds.
“As we go through the draft if there is a good running back there, I can’t imagine he is not going to get a lot of attention in terms of what he can do for our football team,” Stephen Jones said. “Certainly, who’s to say where that’s going to be — first, second, third, fourth round. Who knows where that is going to come up. Certainly a spot where if the right guy were there we would certainly look at it.”
Stephen Jones also subscribes to the philosophy that running backs should be taking in the first four picks like the Cowboys did with Elliott in 2016.
That issue is not in play in 2023 with the Cowboys picking at 26. He said it’s when you are in the top 15 where he is against taking a running back because of their shorter careers.
“I think you have to pay attention to the history of the running back,” Stephen Jones said. “Obviously, we made a conscious decision to take Zeke. I think he was a big part of our success there when we got Dak and Zeke in there together, what he brought to the table, but at the same time, there are very few Emmitt Smith’s that play at a high level, a productive level for 10 years.
“If you’re picking in the top 10 or top 15, you really are thinking we have to have a second contract out of that deal. So, does it affect you when you’re thinking about a running back up that high? Yes. [But] If you happen to see a back there at the bottom of the first that’s rare and unique and falls because he’s a running back then I would have to be thinking we’d be considering it.”
This story was originally published April 24, 2023 at 3:52 PM with the headline "Dallas Cowboys would not take a RB 4th again like they did with Ezekiel Elliott."
