Well when they run away from him the backside DE/OLB blows by him and runs the play down from the backside so it doesn't much matter if they run to his side or not. I do actually remember people complaining about Emmitt having "lost a step" as he entered the latter half of his career but he proved that if you gave him decent blocking he could still perform at a top 5-10 level.
After a certain age (and number of miles on the tires) a back simply isn't going to be able to put the team on his back for long stretches but great ones can still do it for a game or two or take over for a series or two every game.. I think Zeke is such a back.. His problem is that Moore isn't going to let him carry this team very often. I think we had a 3 game stretch last season where we NEVER called consecutive run plays.. I think it was like the Thanksgiving game, the Ratscum game and the Nawlins games.. I think there was an even longer stretch without three consecutive run plays. It's like Moore is scared to let the running game get off. Doesn't matter if they get 2 yards or 20.. the next three plays WILL be passes more often than not.
i had hoped Zeke would re-vamp, re-conditioned his body back to the 2016 version. we could tell by comparing his OSU photo vs his 2018 photo version that he had bulked up a bit.
Elliott sought to trained with ex NFL back Skip Hicks.to re-kettle that form - but i never saw the tripper body frame, plus he never regained the high hurdle agility he had when
he was hurdling over whiffing defenders such as when he came into the NFL.
The
Track & Field background. .. that's actually what i thought he'd trained and re-conditioned himself back to ..vs running around bags and trying to be more elusive.
Maybe he did slim down ..at the offseason time, but i did not notice one difference in his body once the reg season started and it took the field.
That patented Adrian Peterson like burst and explosion, .. i still did not see it.
Once it got to the more competitive teams down the stretch, that's when i was hoping it would show up. It never did.
Now zeke had some early season productive games vs Carolina, Chargers, Philly, but too many times not vs the better teams such as Pats, Denver, etc.