Former Cowboys running back Ezekiel Elliott still hasn’t found a team yet. Here’s where one slightly sketchy source thinks he’ll end up this offseason.
The Dallas Cowboys parting ways with Ezekiel Elliott was one of the most obvious outcomes this offseason. People would have placed big bets to see Zeke get released, regardless of what notorious madman Jerry Jones was saying at the time.
In March, Zeke got cut. A little over two months later, he hasn’t yet found a team willing to take a chance on him. Zeke’s former coach driving down his value didn’t help. His injury history and career-low numbers from last season didn’t help, either.
As a top-ranked free agent at a non-premium position, Zeke’s barren wasteland of suitors may have just grown two green sprouts.
Only if you believe this “source,” however.
According to Sportskeeda (first red flag), a league insider said the most likely landing spots for Elliott are the Cleveland Browns and Los Angeles Chargers.
The Chargers make a ton of sense. But what are the Browns doing there?
Ezekiel Elliott’s top rumored landings spots are Chargers and Browns
The anonymous source doesn’t explain. He or she only gives a brief snippet on the potential explosive pairing of Elliott and the Chargers:
"“Elliott, paired with Chargers starting running back Austin Ekeler, would give the Chargers arguably one of the most lethal running back tandems in all of football – one that would feature elusiveness, power and speed.”"
Former Dallas offensive coordinator Kellen Moore moving to LA to run the Justin Herbert Show in 2023 makes a Zeke-Chargers partnership quite plausible.
Ekeler and Herbert’s heroics aside, an incisive end-zone threat and mostly reliable RB2 like Elliott would be a potential playoff-push piece for a franchise with horrendous luck and just bad juju. Zeke may not cleanse the team of its evil spirits (considering his own domestic abuse allegations), but it can’t hurt?
Onto the Browns, perhaps a better moral fit for Elliott, who would get to work with Deshaun Watson. From a schematic perspective, the Browns also need an RB2 after losing D’Ernest Johnson and cutting Kareem Hunt, but would Cleveland really shell out the cash for Elliott? The Browns have other needier positions to address, and having 2022 fifth-rounder Jerome Ford as the next man up isn’t the end of the world.
As for the Cowboys, they aren’t currently considered viable suitors for Elliott, but wouldn’t it be so funny if they were?
That’s the kind of amusing endgame we’re hoping for. And maybe it was Jerry Jones’ plan all along.