Here are Zeke's runs from the game last weekL
First drive .. 4, 2, 4.. Two solid runs with a wonderful effort to convert on 3rd and 1 when the blocking was pretty bad.
Second drive .. no runs.
Third drive Pollard in he gets 1 run for 0 yards
Fourth Drive after the fumble forced by Lawrence .. Elliott back in one run for 2 yards.
Fifth drive after INT .. no runs
Sixth drive hurry up.. no runs.
So Zeke got one carry after the opening drive where he had 10 yards on 3 carries. Not lighting it up but enough to keep the defense honest. We didn't give up on the run because it was going backwards.. We gave up on the run because we predetermined before the game that we couldn't.
Second half.
First drive .. one carry for 0 yards, then the infamous option pitch for -1.
Second drive 13, 0 , 4. .. three carries 17 yards.. again.. production
Third drive 0 runs
Fourth drive 1, 4
Fifth drive .. end of game.
So Zeke had 4 carries for 12 yards in the first half then 7 carries for 21 in the second .. He really never had any opportunity to establish any sort of rhythm running the ball.. or catching it or that matter. We know against a stout defense sometimes the dam doesn't break until you've pounded them for 60 minutes. We never allowed ourselves a chance for that to happen. Late in the game when the Bucs defenders were sucking wind, cramping and going in and out of the game we did not take advantage of it by pounding the rock like we should have. Especially on our last drive instead of throwing it after the 2 minute warning it was the PERFECT time to pound the rock. It also probably would have avoided the stupid holding penalty AND eaten up more time and/or TB's timeouts. Remember the penalty where they had to take a timeout to avoid the 10 second runoff? A couple of nice runs at the 1:51 mark instead of the incomplete pass stopping the clock. Zeke gets 4 on the next run.. had we done that on first down we'd have eaten up either another 40 seconds or Tampa's last time out. Run it again on second down and you're under a minute for the third down play.. Run it again.. then kick the FG with maybe 30 seconds left on the flock and Tampa with no timeouts. That last drive was poorly managed... by Dak, by Moore and ultimately by McCarthy. That can't happen again..