The Issue With Ezekiel Elliott: How Much He Should (Or Shouldn’t) Make In 2023
Let me start off by saying I am, and have been, a huge Zeke Elliott supporter. Coming into the league, the guy put everyone on notice by easily becoming the top back in the NFL. Those days are long gone. Does he still serve a purpose and belong on a team battling for a Super Bowl, yes, but at what cost?
With news coming out about Zeke’s representation going to wait till the NFL combine to “figure out” what the RB’s value is, I decided to take a deeper look myself to try to come up with a yearly number Zeke would be “worth”.
Overthecap.com has a great chart showing the age, total value, avg/per year and total guaranteed:
Elliott tops the chart in two of the three metrics: total guaranteed and total value. Anyone that has watched the NFL the last two seasons, knows this is a terrible trade off for the amount of production. Although he has been a touchdown machine in his last two campaigns (10 in 2021, 12 in 2022) his yards per carry has gradually gone down every season. On top of that, his catches were down, and he notched zero 100 yard rushing games.
Tony Pollard, who played RB1A to Zeke’s RB1B, had a much more successful season averaging 5.2 yards per carry while making 14 million dollars less. Let's get a visual to see just how absurd our RB money allocation is.
Those numbers are mind-boggling. It honestly makes me hate Zeke’s representation. Sure, their whole purpose is to do the best by their client, but Zeke has been getting the best deal in football these last few seasons. I’m not here to compare Zeke/Tony though, just trying to figure out what Elliott’s true value is. It’s not looking good though, personally, I am starting to lean towards a KC Chiefs RB approach. Draft one every year, pay them between 2-5 million and move on.
There were eight RB’s last season who rushed for over 12 TD’s; five of them made less than seven million dollars. Most make less than three. Out of the remaining three RBs who make bank each year, Zeke was the only one with a less than 4.0 YPC (3.8). In fact, Nick Chubb and Derrick Henry had respectable 5.0 and 4.4 YPC.
With how deep the NFL draft class of 2023 is at RB, I would be very surprised with the Cowboys keeping Ezekiel Elliott for anything more than 5 million per year. Players that fall into that current pay grade are: Kareem Hunt, Cordarelle Patterson, Gus Edwards, Jamal Williams, Josh Jacobs and Najee Harris. Some of these guys are still on rookie contracts, others have just had decent production on team friendly deals.
It’s time for Zeke to get team friendly, or move on.
