Dallas Cowboys running back Ezekiel Elliott was held out practice for a second straight day with a calf strain.
He again worked on the side with associate athletic trainer Britt Brown in an effort to get some of that range of motion and all that stiffness out of it, per Elliott.
But don’t look for the painful injury to keep him out of Sunday’s game against the San Francisco 49ers.
He played through it in last week’s 30-7 victory against the Bengals and he believes it’s something he will have to deal with for the rest of the season.
But there is no consideration of sitting out.
“I think [the calf injury] might be something I might have to manage throughout the season. I don’t know,” Elliott said Wednesday. “Every day is a little bit different. It’s just a little bit stiff and sore.” He said the staff just tries to “work through the stiffness, [to] get all the inflammation out. Who knows how long I’ll be dealing with it. It sucks during the week trying to get it warm and get it ready for practice.”
Elliott said the injury was a little stiff early on against the Bengals but once he loosened up he didn’t notice it. He played 32 of 51 snaps in the game, tallying 48 yards on 12 carriers.
It was the eighth time in 2020 that has rushed for 63 yards or fewer in a game.
While Elliott, who ranks seventh in the NFL this year with 832 yards rushing, needs just 168 to reach 1,000 yards for the fourth time in his five seasons, it can’t mask the continued deterioration of his production.
The two-time NFL rushing champion averaged 108.7 yards per game and 5.1 per carry as a rookie in 2016. He’s experienced a consistent decline since, and is just producing 64.0 yards per game and 3.9 per carry through 13 contests in 2020. And after scoring five rushing touchdowns in the first five games, he’s had none on the ground in the last eight.
The decline this season can be attributed to the season-ending injury to quarterback Dak Prescott and the losses of the team’s three best linemen in tackles Tyron Smith and La’el Collins and guard Zack Martin injuries as well.
He also played through a strained hamstring earlier in the season.
Former Cowboys quarterback Troy Aikman, who is an NFL analyst for FOX, said he is not seeing the same burst from Elliott. He said it could be the injuries he is playing along with the lesser play up front on the offensive line due to losses of Smith, Collins and Martin.
“Obviously it does not help with the problems they’ve had on the offensive line with all the injuries that they’ve had,” Aikman said on his radio show on 1310-AM The Ticket. “That affects everybody and it affects Zeke. What I’ve seen watching him getting ready for the games we’ve had is he just didn’t seem like he had the same kind of burst and acceleration that I’ve seen from him in the past.
“And I know he has dealt with some injuries and he’s fought through that. So what happens a lot of times is the guys who play through injury that don’t really make a big deal about it, they get more heavily scrutinized because they’re not at full strength and it shows.
“If that’s because of injury, if that’s because of just the wear and tear on his body over the course of his career, I really don’t know.”
Considering the year began with Elliott dealing with COVID-19 that set back his training in June and now includes a career-high in fumbles to go along with the team’s 4-9 mark, he said 2021 has been tough mentally and emotionally.
Overcoming COVID, which he says had no impact on his season, playing through injuries and dealing with questions about production are part of it.
But he will see it through with the rest of his teammates.
“We didn’t know when we were going to start,” Elliott said. “That was the start of it. You look at the injuries we have had from LC [Collins] to Tyron to Dak. We got a lot of guys who were going to be starters for this team who aren’t playing right now who ended up having season ending injuries. We have had to do what we can. It’s been tough.”
“I am a competitor over anything,” he said. “Every time we go out there to suit up we go out there to try to win a football game I think it’s important for this group of men to finish the season strong.”
