Cowboys bring back running back Ezekiel Elliott

Ezekiel Elliott (YouTube)

According to Spotrac on Monday, the Dallas Cowboys have decided to bring back running back Ezekiel Elliott of Alton, Illinois. The terms of the deal are one year and worth $3 million, of which $2 million is guaranteed.

The Cowboys were in need of a running back after losing running back Tony Pollard of Memphis, Tennessee to the Tennessee Titans in free agency on March 14. Dallas did sign running back Royce Freeman of Imperial, California to a one-year contract worth $1.29 million on April 16, after playing last season with the Los Angeles Rams. It is expected that Freeman and Elliott will share the workload in 2024 in the Cowboys backfield.

Elliott had spent the majority of his National Football League career with the Cowboys before joining the New England Patriots in 2023. Last season, he had 184 rushes for 642 rushing yards and three rushing touchdowns, along with 51 catches for 313 receiving yards and two touchdowns.

Elliott’s two touchdown catches came in Patriots wins. The first was an 11-yard touchdown catch from Bailey Zappe in a 21-18 Patriots win over the Pittsburgh Steelers on December 7, and the second was a 15-yard touchdown catch from Zappe in a 26-23 Patriots win over the Denver Broncos on Christmas Eve.

From 2016 to 2022, Elliott had seven solid seasons with the Cowboys. He had 8904 rushing yards in 120 games. In his rookie season of 2016, Elliott led the NFL with 1631 rushing yards. He then led the NFL rushing yards again in 2018 with 1434. Elliott was also selected to the Pro Bowl in 2016, 2018, and 2019.

The fact that the Cowboys are bringing back Elliott is interesting. That is because when they released him a year ago, it was one of the bigger stories of the NFL offseason.