Derek Eagleton On Zeke/O-Line

[MikeB80]

True but remember drafting Zeke was all about extending Romo's career. They were trying to reset 2014 when Romo had his best career year with DeMarco Murray leading the league in rushing. So I guess you can say drafting Zeke was part of Romo's value ......

Drafting zeke was about the style of play the team was built for. They spent years building a team to win in the style they finally could play in 14.

Romo was fantastic in 14 but it was not his best season.

 

[DuncanIso]

Zeke is in a funk right now. I don’t think he’s fell off I think he’s the same back. I think what we need to dial back is what type of back he was to begin with.

he’s on track for a career low in carries.

still has a 4.1 avg per rush.

his reception numbers are excellent.

we need production at LT and RT.

that’s the problem.

 

[Iago33]

Zeke has 20 career fumbles in 1504 touches.

it happens.

honestly, we have bigger problems.

We don’t have a higher paid problem, though.

 

[TwistedL0g1k]

The offensive line is a sad joke. Blame it on management or bad luck with injuries, but it's absolutely pathetic. It's had to imagine any RB or QB being effective.

Zeke's best days may be behind him, but he remains a good RB. I'll still always maintain that drafting him #4 overall was a catastrophic mistake.

 

[RonnieT24]

Drafting zeke was about the style of play the team was built for. They spent years building a team to win in the style they finally could play in 14.

Romo was fantastic in 14 but it was not his best season.

Umm actually it was.. He had his highest passer rating AND QBR that year. It was also his best year in terms of TD/INT ration.. 34/9 .. Almost 4 to 1. It was not his biggest output yardage wise but ask any Dak hater and they will happily tell you that yards mean nothing..

 

[Ring6]

My goodness! I was hoping I wasn’t the only one bothered by this.

yeah normally I'm not the grammar police by any stretch, but he's in the business of writing, its his job. not that I never make a mistake at mine. but he should have followed up in the twitter thread, that is unless he just doesn't realize it, yikes

edit: see? I totally blew punctuation and caps. me not a writer.

 

[Runwildboys]

There's no disputing that first part.I was with him until he said Barry Sanders had a bad O-line. That line was nowhere near as bad as people made it out to be.

I was with him until he used "dominate" as an adjective.

 

[Iago33]

yeah normally I'm not the grammar police by any stretch, but he's in the business of writing, its his job. not that I never make a mistake at mine. but he should have followed up in the twitter thread, that is unless he just doesn't realize it, yikes

edit: see? I totally blew punctuation and caps. me not a writer.

I am the grammar police for a living, so it really bothers me. I’m glad someone else beat me to it.

 

[Runwildboys]

Derek - the adjective is "dominant" not "dominate"

Beat me to it.

 

[Ring6]

I am the grammar police for a living, so it really bothers me. I’m glad someone else beat me to it.

I thank you for your service.

In this socially distant time, you are a first responder.

 

[MyFairLady]

Guess the gang has their marching orders. Defend Zeke at all costs. I wouldn't hope for anything to get much better any time soon.

 

[aria]

Yeah the Rams didn't miss a beat when Gurley got hurt.. CJ was amazing in leading them to that Super Bowl win.... oh.. wait..
.
.
Zeke has been in the top 10 in just about every meaningful rushing stat every year he's been in the league.. but because YOU want it to be mediocre we can just ignore that.. You cannot use "mediocre" and top 10 in the same sentence. Total yards, yards per carry, touchdowns, carries.. he's been among the tops in the league his entire career .. He led the league in rushing twice when he had a good line.. I'd love to hear how that rates as "mediocre." Even this year when he is stinking it up by his standards he's still at or near the top 10 in all the production categories. He's 7th in carries, 7th in yards, 6th in TDs, 8th in yards after contact, 10th in broken tackles. That should tell you just how great this guy is.. He's having far and away the worst year of his career.. and still sits in the top 10 in all these rankings. And I think we can all agree that the line has been garbage for him all season. Zeke's only problem this year has been the fumbling and the inexplicable pass drops. Well some of it can indeed be explained.. He's getting crappy blocking and is trying to compensate by playing differently and has gotten caught up trying to do too much. If Zeke is top 10 while having the worst year of his life, what does that say about the 40-50 backs ranked below him in all these categories?

Lol, so it’s SB or bust? By those standards, zeke is a scrub. Speaking of, CJ did make zeke look like a scrub in that playoff game.

I love how you use play calling stats to back up your claim.

So you equate volume to being the best? There’s plenty of other RB’s who had much worse O lines yet had the same or more ypc but because of the play calling or other offensive players on their team they didn’t get the ball as much or they would have won the meaningless rushing title, which is almost always a direct result of total carries which is a direct result of play calling. By that standard, Demarco Murray was a much better RB than zeke.

TD’s?! Bwahahahahaha...yeah, that makes you elite when your handed the ball at the two yard line. Again, most TD’s are nothing but a result of play calling. I guess if teams have players like Dez, Kittle, Witten, etc or other red zone threats and the ball gets spread around more than whoever their RB is should be “penalized” for not getting as many TD’s as some scrub they may bring in for plays on the 5 yard line. What game was it that Dak had two rushing TD’s from the 1-2 yard line and zeke had only one? I guess that means Dak is a better rusher.

He’s actually 9th in yards and 7th in attempts, if he was that good he should have more yards than attempts. Again, his yards are a direct result of his attempts and there are several RB’s with less attempts and more yards. His ypc average isn’t even top 10, where do you come up with this crap?

https://www.espn.com/nfl/stats/player/_/stat/rushing/table/rushing/sort/rushingAttempts/dir/desc

One last question, remember the ~7 links to articles about zeke I posted for you? Did you read a single one? I noticed you never replied, do I need to post them again or do you just want to continue to ignore them like all his other fan boys?

 

[MyFairLady]

Zeke is fat and awful. He is nothing like he was as a rookie. Not even remotely close. Keep on going with the denial if you want. Me I keep my eyes wide open. I see that fat little ******* stinking it up each and every Sunday.

 

[Stash]

Zeke has 20 career fumbles in 1504 touches.

it happens.

honestly, we have bigger problems.

In six games, Elliott has fumbled five times, losing four.

Elliott's 101 rushing attempts places him sixth among all backs in the NFL. His three lost fumbles on rushes (not counting the one after a reception) equal the amount of the rest of the top ten combined.

Zeke lost just five fumbles in his first four seasons before this year's deluge. The four botches this season have led directly to 28 points for Cowboys' opponents.

Even outside the fumbles, Elliott is experiencing a career-worst in most metrics. The Pro Bowl back is averaging career lows in touches per game (22.2), scrimmage yards per game (102.8), yards per touch (4.6), carries per game (16.8), and rush yards per game (68.8). His 4.1 yards per carry mark is the second-lowest in his career to date.

https://www.nfl.com/news/cowboys-ezekiel-elliott-no-one-way-to-fix-fumbling-problems

Don't try to sugarcoat things.

 

[Stash]

he’s on track for a career low in carries.

still has a 4.1 avg per rush.

his reception numbers are excellent.

we need production at LT and RT.

that’s the problem.

Are they? How many drops does he already have this year?

 

[Einstein]

Zeke also needs to take one positive thing from LeVeon Bell (since dude is a absolute idiot) - DROP SOME WEIGHT!!!!! Zeke needs to get to OR below 220...maybe he'll get his quickness back.

Whatever... he is currently listed as 3 pound more than he was when he got drafted

 

[aria]

Guess the gang has their marching orders. Defend Zeke at all costs. I wouldn't hope for anything to get much better any time soon.

The excuses never stop, I guess the homers will support the Star at all costs and even try to justify his price tag.

Other RB’s never got the O line excuse when zeke had one of the best 4 out of his 5 years. The O line wasn’t relevant, it didn’t matter. Now once the O line isn’t as good, still rated 10th in run blocking though, zeke gets the O line excuse. How convenient.

zeke always carried Dak is what his panty sniffers constantly told us but now once Dak is gone he gets the excuse of Dak isn’t here. How convenient.

zeke would now be better if we were playing from the lead yet other RB’s continue to put up solid numbers when they aren’t playing from the lead. How convenient.

poor play calling under JG held zeke back even though the only reason zeke got as many carries and the rushing title (other than the O line) was because of the play calling under JG. Once MM got here we were told zeke would finally be used like he should and he would put up even better numbers yet the excuses keep rolling in.

zeke used to get the “he faces so many stacked boxes” which has decreased every year since his rookie year. Last year there were ~26 other RB’s that faced more stacked boxes than zeke yet not a word was mentioned about that. How convenient.

It will never end. If his fan boys can’t see how mediocre he is without a top O line this year then nothing will convince them otherwise. He demanded to be paid as the best, I don’t remember there being an O line clause in his demands, now he’s not even top 10 in most categories and the majority of people who watch him should be able to see how average to below average he looks.

 

[Thomas82]

Zeke is in a funk right now. I don’t think he’s fell off I think he’s the same back. I think what we need to dial back is what type of back he was to begin with.

I believe it would help if we put a fullback in front of him.

 

[TheMarathonContinues]

I just saw where he's leading the league in several negative categories for running backs.



He did it in college. He was running away from people for huge gains all the time. And he also did it as a rookie and during his sophomore season as well. Look it up, his dropoff is well charted and documented.

I understand it. @aria quickly reminds the site lol.I'm not denying he was better his rookie season but look at these highlights....



Can you honestly see a difference in Zeke the runner? Because I don't. I just see a guy who's offensive line isn't nearly as good. There are times in these clips where he's not touched for 10 yards. I'm not going to say his production was strictly based on the offensive line but to me that's the biggest difference in him.

And this is what I mean by maybe we need to dial back what we initially thought of him. I think he was a good running back who profited off of a great offensive line. Everyone was so quick to point out the line being beneficial to Dak but it was to Zeke as well.

 

[TheMarathonContinues]

I believe it would help if we put a fullback in front of him.

Seems like he's been at his best when he had a fullback but I guess this team feels opposite.