Zeke, wake up, man.
You are all over ESPN again, the place no NFL player wants to be right before camp begins.
"Ezekiel Elliott Incident," read the TV screen for much of Monday.
Seriously?
What now?
TMZ is on the case, of course, claiming you punched the nose of that man who was recorded rolling around in pain on the floor of a Dallas bar.
Your people aren't talking, saying only that you were not arrested, that no official legal complaint was made against you. As if that will calm things down.
The NFL, which has not yet decided if and how you will be punished for the domestic violence allegation that continues to hang over your head, is now looking into your latest negative headline. Your Cowboys can't be pleased. You all leave Saturday, on your 22nd birthday, to start training camp in California.
Meanwhile, the talking heads and former athletes are once again spewing opinions about you. How will this affect your season? Your career? Your legacy?
"At some point he is going to have to act appropriately," Michael Vick said about you on Fox Sports 1.
Let that comment and its irony sink in.
Everyone's got a take on you, Zeke. Some aren't so flattering. Back here in your hometown of St. Louis, the folks who know you best are mostly worried about the gregarious young man they watched blossom from John Burroughs star, to Ohio State stud, to the No. 4 draft pick who shattered records as a rookie and made first-team All-Pro.
If there's one thing our country loves more than a superstar, it's a superstar who comes crashing back to earth. Too often you seem to be headed that direction. You even seemed to acknowledge it not that long ago.
"You learn from your mistakes," you told reporters in June. "If you don't, it can be brutal."
How's this for brutal?
Before you could find out how the league will handle the domestic violence allegation that was made against you last year, you managed to make news by being with a friend who was arrested for trying to carry a firearm into a Columbus, Ohio bar; pulling a woman's top down and exposing her breast during a St. Patrick's Day party at a rooftop bar in Dallas; and now Sunday night's mysterious incident.
How do you explain these events?
I'm genuinely curious.
Because it's right and fair to point out you have broken no laws. You were never charged in the domestic violence investigation that stemmed from the complaints of a woman who claimed to be your former girlfriend, and frankly the public details in the case _ which included conflicting information and questionable text messages sent by the alleged victim _ seemed to work in your favor. And you were not questioned or detained when your buddy got busted with the gun; you were just there. And your people said the woman you exposed in March was not offended, so why did everyone freak? And if no charges stem from whatever went down Sunday, what's the big deal?
The alternative is to take a step back and look at the big picture, the overall pattern of behavior. It's looking at what three of these regrettable instances have in common: being in a bar. It's evaluating who you spend your time with, and asking what they have to lose. It's realizing the NFL is under more pressure than ever before to hammer anyone remotely tied to domestic violence issues, and that your behavior while the investigation was open likely hurt your chances of avoiding a multi-game suspension, therefore weakening your team.
It's learning that always being the life of the party, the center of attention, can come with a cost in a society that loves to build up celebrities then rip them down. It's asking yourself if the risks you have been taking off the field are worth losing precious time on it, and determining a new course of action based on that answer.
Wake up, Zeke, before all this smoke turns into a fire you can't put out.
