As the Dallas Cowboys’ 2024 regular season winds down to an anticlimactic end, we look ahead to the future. At 5-8 any hope Cowboys fans, players, coaches, executives or anyone else may have been clinging onto was pretty much shattered in the loss to Cincinnati on Monday night. While Dallas won’t stop fighting according to owner Jerry Jones, we’ve got to keep a realistic mindset about this.
Like every other NFL organization, there are players every year that have “overstayed their welcome” for lack of a better term. This happens for many reasons but in the case of the Cowboys, most of these players, it comes down to either father time snatching them up or lack of production. The Cowboys have a few players who fall into this category no matter how much we hate to admit it. In other words, it’s going to hurt, but it is time for the Cowboys to move on without three fan favorites before the 2025 season.
Ezekiel Elliott
This feels like the end of the road for the once mighty running machine out of Ohio State. Elliott had one of the best starts to a career back in 2016 that any of us had seen. Those first four years for Elliott were phenomenal and at one point he was considered the best running back in the NFL. But by 2020 at least a little bit of a decline began to show and from there his numbers continued to dip.
Dallas went as far as to cut Elliott from the team before the 2023 season only to bring him back for a reunion this year. That reunion has not gone as planned. In 12 games this season (two as RB1) Elliott has 193 yards rushing on 61 carries. Toting the rock 300-plus times in three of Elliot’s first four seasons really took a toll on his body. He hasn’t approached as many carries since the ’19 campaign. It’s sad to see but it’s time for both sides to move on for good.
Zack Martin
Another fan favorite since he stepped foot on the field at Jerry World, Zack Martin has been the ultimate example of a professional in the sport. A seven-time All-Pro and nine-time Pro Bowl selection, Martin will go down as one of the greatest interior offensive linemen of his era and probably all-time. However, it has become painfully clear over the past couple of years that Martin’s best days are clearly in the rearview.
Age, injury and attrition seem to have finally caught up with the future Hall of Famer. Were it possible, Martin would receive his gold jacket the second he retires. Whether that be after this season or in a year or two. Martin once spearheaded this Cowboys offensive line that was considered the best in the league for at least half a decade.
Demarcus Lawrence
Demarcus Lawrence has been a mainstay in Big D since 2014 and has been extremely productive during his time with the Cowboys. A four-time Pro Bowler, Lawrence was taken by the Cowboys in the same draft as Martin (first-round) as a second-round pick. D-Law doesn’t have as many individual accolades as a player like Martin but has been just as important to the team’s success over the years.
Leadership in the locker room is a trait that can be attributed to Lawrence and it can be just as pivotal to a team’s cohesiveness. This season hasn’t been great for Lawrence, as it ended early with a foot injury, and at the age of 32, nobody knows how he’ll recover from this setback.
It sucks to say but Lawrence could very well end up on the free agent market this offseason due in large part to age, injury and a slip in production. Lawrence hasn’t generated more than six sacks since 2020. The Cowboys are entering a phase where those mainstays and fan favorites might need to be moved along to help the franchise evolve.