PHOENIX — The Dallas Cowboys are saying all the right things about leaving the door open for running back Ezekiel Elliott to return to the team if he doesn’t find a home in free agency.
Owner Jerry Jones and vice president Stephen Jones made the same comment within hours apart at the NFL Owner’s Meetings in Phoenix Monday.
Of course, it goes without saying that the Cowboys, who cut the two-time NFL rushing champ for salary cap reasons and because of a decline in his production, could have kept Elliott on the roster if they would have offered him a pay cut.
Elliott was willing.
But the Cowboys never gave him a chance. They never made an offer.
Why?
Because they didn’t want to insult him with low-ball offer.
The Cowboys have had to make tough financial decisions on a number of star players late in their careers, including Hall of Famer running back Emmitt Smith and newly-elected Hall of Fame defensive end DeMarcus Ware.
Smith won three Super Bowl titles and became the NFL’s all-time leading rusher with the Cowboys but ended his career with the Arizona Cardinals.
Ware, the franchise’s all-time leader in sacks, played his final three seasons with the Denver Broncos.
“When you’ve got players and we’ve had them over the years, whether it’s Emmitt Smith, whether it’s a Demarcus Ware these type of players you’ve got such respect for everything that they’ve done for your organization,” Stephen Jones said. “Sometimes the best thing is to let them get a feel for what the market is. The last thing we want to do is do anything that would be insulting to a player to a great player, like Zeke, who was one of the best players to ever put on Cowboys uniform, and he gave us everything he had.
“But yeah, there are sensitivities when you get into making offers.”
Elliott was set to count $16.7 million against the salary cap with a $10.9 million non-guaranteed base salary in 2023. And that number would not stand after the team gave Tony Pollard the franchise tag, guaranteeing $10.1 million in 2023.
Elliott was released as designated a post-June 1 cut, which means the club will save nearly $11 million against the 2023 cap.
Jones said it’s best to let the market reveal a declining player’s worth than for their own team to do it. Often times great players still look at themselves a certain way, but the business of the game says something different.
And it’s easier to maintain lifelong relationships when a player finds out for himself.
“Almost always, the case the you’re talking about great players, and that’s what makes them great, but they perceive themselves as a great player and they are,” Stephen Jones said. “It just becomes how do you make the business work. It always boils down to that unfortunately.”
Stephen Jones said there was no joy when Smith went to Arizona and Ware went to Denver.
“But you look up and there’s a lot of good will still between DeMarcus and the Cowboys,” Stephen Jones said. “You see him around the building all the time. Emmitt Smith you see around the building all the time. I think for the most part we’ve worked through these tough situations in a good way and hopefully we’re doing it in spades with Zeke because there’s nothing but love and respect for Zeke Elliott.”
