Cowboys Critique: Little Aaiden Diggs Rips RB Ezekiel Elliott
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Reverend Conehead
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He has my respect, for sure, for sucking it up and keeping hitting it. However, I'm not sure that was a smart choice by the coaches. I kept thinking it would have made more sense to sit him longer, giving him more time to heal, so he would be as strong as possible for the playoffs. The team could have leaned on Pollard more, and I forget the names of the other backs, but there were some guys capable of getting yards. Yes, I respect him, but that doesn't mean continually playing him while still hurt was smart.
RonnieT24
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Oh it absolutely wasn't. Even if the Cowboys lost 1-2 more games because Zeke was out they would have been better setup for the playoffs with a healthy Zeke. It was a 4-6 week injury I think.. So he got hurt in week 5 against the Giants. Some will say he did it against the Panthers but I thought that was the game where he took the pylon camera to the ribs. The roll up on his leg happened against the Giants the following week.
We played the Pats the following week.. Do we beat them without Zeke? Dunno.. for the sake of argument let's call that one a loss. But no OT means no injury to Dak. 4-2
Then the bye..
Then the Vikings.. No Zeke but a healthy Dak.. W. 5-2
Then the Broncos.. L 5-3
Then the Falcons.. W 6-3
Then the Chiefs L 6-4
This makes 7 weeks.. with a fully healthy Zeke I'm calling the Thanksgiving game a W. 7-4
Saints W 8-4
WFT W 9-4
Giants W 10-4
WFT W 11-4
AZ - with Zeke healthy.. call it a dub 12-4
PHI - W 13-4
There I said it.. Sitting Zeke and taking a loss at the Pats would likely have been the smart call as having him back healthy for the stretch run would have been huge for this team. Even if they take another L somewhere along the way it would have meant the same record. The only real question is that without Zeke to pick up the leakage along the offensive line doe Dak take a hit that ends his season prematurely with Pollard watching his back? My guess is that fear is the #1 reason why they didn't sit him.. People like to say it was about money.. Yeah it was.. but it wasn't about the money being paid to Zeke.. it was about the 40 million a year being paid to the QB.