Zeke worth the money or could Pollard tow the line?

[exciter]

Easy for a fool.

Only a fool wouldn't pay the 4th overall pick that has become the focal point of the offense that every opposing team made stopping priority one!

 

[aria]

History doesn't bear that out. We saw almost half a season in 2017 without Zeke.
He played games 1-8. We were 5-3 in those games. Offense averaged 27 points per game.
The next 6 games, with Zeke out, the Cowboys went 3-3 and the offense averaged 18.3 points per game.

Is that a coincidence? I suppose you could argue that..... I can tell you that, whatever the cause, as soon as Zeke got suspended the Cowboys went 3 games scoring a total of 2 offensive Touchdown. 3 games. 2 TD. Total

After averaging 27 points per game while Zeke was in. Dak on his own without Zeke doing the heavy lifting, the next 3 games, a *TOTAL* of 22 points. Not 22 points per game. 22 points total, in almost a month of football. Again, is that a coincidence? Maybe....

The 6 games Zeke missed in 2016, the offense averaged 294 yards per game and 18.3 points per game.
the 10 games Zeke played in 2017, the offense averaged 355 yards per game and 27 points per game.

Since that's pretty much the only football Zeke has missed since he was drafted (another good quality of a franchise running back, availability and durability) that's the only sample we have on the offense without Zeke on the field.

But I just wanted to remind you and everyone else how ugly it was. IT was bad football. Terrible football.
This idea that we could win "every game we won" without Zeke doing the heavy lifting isn't just questionable, based on facts of history, it's provably false.
We lost him for almost half a season and it was one of the worst offensive stretches of Cowboys football in the history of the team. In fact, I looked up the Cleveland browns from that same 2017 season. You know, the season where the Browns were 0-16?

Their worst 3 game stretch of offense for Cleveland in that winless season was 33 points.
An 0-16 team with DeShone Kizer as the starting QB, their worst 3 games stretch was 33% better scoring wise, as our first 3 games without Zeke.

if you want to argue that maybe we shouldn't have paid Zeke as much as we did, that's a discussion we can have.
If you want to argue that Zeke literally makes no difference and that we would win just as many games and be just as effective without him, that's basically an insane thing to say that isn't supported by historical evidence.

Lol, there are so many variables there that could be argued either way. What about Atlanta when Tyron was out and Dak got sacked like 6 times? You could pick apart games we won and lost this year and say we would have won them “if”.

What about the Giants game in week 16 last year? It was one of our best offensive performances all year and Zeke was on the sidelines. What about when we were playing Seattle last year and Zeke not only fumbled, but stepped inexplicably out of bounds in two different critical situations that would have given us the W? What if Zeke hadn’t fumbled against NO?

My point is, you can break down those stats 100 different ways. What teams did we play when he was gone vs when he was there? How were those defenses ranked against the run? WHY DID ALFRED MORRIS AVERAGE ALMOST 1 YARD MORE PER CARRY then Zeke when Zeke was gone? How did the play calling differ? How were the offenses we played ranked compared to when he was there vs wasn’t?

It’s not as simple as saying “we won this many games, averaged this many points and averaged this many yards when Zeke was there versus when he wasn’t, therefore Zeke was the reason”. That’s ludicrous.

What you gave as examples is hardly evidence, it’s actually called incomplete evidence, unless you bring every other factor, and several others I didn’t mention, into the equation.

As far as this year, is there one game you really think we would have lost without Zeke and if so, which ones and why?

 

[BigCatMonaco]

2nd in the entire league in scrimmage yards.