Yeah, yeah, call me Captain Obvious. But I promise there’s a point to be made here.
Fantasy football owners who drafted Ezekiel Elliott with the hopes he’d sign an extension with the Dallas Cowboys rejoiced on Wednesday morning when the franchise made it official and got the holdout running back to come back, just in time for practice ahead of Week 1.
But this is an RB who hasn’t taken a single rep in camp, who has spent a lot of his holdout in Cabo and who might need some time to get up to football speed, right?
And then there’s this report:
That’s … not a lot of reps. And rookie Tony Pollard has been really good in the preseason.
But you have to start Zeke.
As Jane Slater of the NFL Network pointed out above, “things can always change.” If the Cowboys are in a close game against the Giants — which doesn’t seem terribly likely? — you can bet Elliott will be a focal point in the fourth quarter. And I’m willing to bet a few of those reps will be near the goal line, so that if Zeke finds paydirt, the home crowd at Jerry World will go nuts.
Plus, the Giants defense isn’t exactly that great, so it’s possible that Elliott either does a lot with those limited reps or he runs so wild that the Cowboys have to get him a little more burn than 20 to 25 reps.
Either way, you’re starting him. That’s what you drafted him for.
