Ezekiel Elliott is still elite, but he’s having trouble with some of McCarthy’s scheme in Dallas
Yes, the Dallas offensive line was missing Zack Martin, Tyron Smith, and La’el Collins. Yes, the Cowboys also lost Dak Prescott in week 5. The excuses are there. The Cowboys had a new system in a unique offseason, injuries at key spots, but Ezekiel Elliott was not his usually dominant self. He had his lowest yards per carry average in his career, had six fumbles, and had trouble reading one of the most common run plays that Dallas ran: duo.
Despite the volume stats going down, Zeke’s yards after contact have stayed stable over the last three seasons. Physically, Ezekiel Elliott still has it. He’s producing and breaking tackles at a similar clip as he has been the last few years despite less help around him. The issue is a lack of cohesion in Mike McCarthy’s new offense. McCarthy didn’t add any wild new schemes, yet Zeke’s ability to read one of the more popular plays right now left a lot to be desired.
Great Zone Runner
The zone running scheme creates flow from the defense and gives Zeke angles to use his power and burst to break tackles and get chunks of yardage. While the name outside zone makes you think that the ball is going outside, the likelihood of outside zone hitting outside the play-side tackle is actually very low. Usually, it hits inside and against the flow of the defense. The Bengals are in a tite front with five players at the line of scrimmage. That front is designed to keep offensive linemen from getting up to the second level on zone plays which lets the linebackers plug and fill.
However, Joe Looney, the Cowboys center does a great job of beating the alignment to get onto the second level. The right guard, Connor McGovern also does a good job of getting in front of the nose and preventing them from chasing down the play. That enables the center to get onto the only linebacker that’s to the play-side. Zeke is reading the leverage of the first level defenders from the outside-in. As the end walls off the outside, Zeke shifts his track and vision one gap inside. That’s where the center being able to climb comes into play. Looney is able to wash the scraping linebacker and Zeke is able to use efficient footwork to cut inside and then burst back out away from chasing defenders.
