Analytics can’t solve Elliott’s contract question with Cowboys.
DALLAS — The analytics mob has spoken. And they say the Cowboys are idiots if they make Zeke Elliott the highest-paid running back in football.
I am not completely in step with this crowd although I lean in the direction of giving numerical evidence more credence than eyeball perception. As we get closer to the Cowboys reporting to Oxnard later this week for training camp, we still don’t know if Elliott will be in attendance. One article suggests that, while waiting for an extension of a contract that still has two years to run, he has plans to visit a foreign country.
I will say that Northern Ireland looks much cooler this time of year, based on my Sunday golf viewing.
Are the Cowboys really crazy to buck the NFL’s trend, to pay their star running back the most at his position? I would say given that backs have been so undervalued, it is not as dangerous to overpay Elliott (if that’s what it would be) than to overpay Dak Prescott. That doesn’t mean it’s smart business, though, and I wonder if head coach Jason Garrett, who is smart enough to know and understand all these criticisms, pays any attention or if he’s so ingrained in his oldschool football ways that he sees them as meaningless whines from those who don’t play the game.
The analytics website FiveThirtyEight ran a detailed analysis of the value of running backs in the modern game. Among the things pointed out was the fact that total running backs’ salaries have fallen from 6.8 percent of a team’s salary cap to 4.5 percent in the last six years. Elliott already is set to make about 4.5 percent of the Cowboys’ projected cap in 2020.
The number in the article that the Cowboys and their fans would be most likely to dispute actually came from Pro Football Focus, which grades players on every play and provides data that NFL clubs actually use. According to PFF, while leading the NFL in rushing last year, Elliott gave the Cowboys twotenths of a win more than an average replacement back would have provided.
I’m going to hazard a guess that most folks feel his value is greater than that, although it’s frequently overstated around here. The club’s failure to reach the 2017 playoffs is often chalked up solely to Elliott’s suspension. The team was 3-3 in the games he missed, 6-4 in the games in which he played. If there were zero other factors to consider, one could surmise he was worth somewhere between one and two wins in that season alone.
But if you recall Prescott being sacked eight times in Atlanta and the coaching failure to adjust that day to life without Tyron Smith, you know there’s more at play here. Beyond that, the most pedestrian of backs — Alfred Morris and Rod Smith — had higher averages per carry than Elliott that season. I don’t think there’s much doubt that opponents worried more about Elliott than Smith but, still, one would think a special player would outproduce his backups per play.
Last year when Elliott returned to form and increased his average per carry from 4.1 yards to 4.7, that ranked 16th in the league. The three backs with the highest average per carry who performed regular roles were Green Bay’s Aaron Jones, Detroit’s Kerryon Johnson and Denver’s Phillip Lindsay — all younger than Elliott, none of them first-round picks. Lindsay wasn’t even drafted, and yet he had better red-zone production than Zeke.
This is how the rest of the league views, signs and discards running backs. Play them right out of college, get four or five seasons of production and move on to the next fresh set of legs. Among the top 20 rushers last season, only Washington’s ageless Adrian Peterson and Houston’s Lamar Miller had been in the league more than four seasons.
Yes. Four.
The Cowboys have Elliott under contract for his fourth and fifth seasons. Does it make sense to give him a Todd Gurley-like contract and reward him $45 million in guaranteed money? It does if you believe that backs should be defined by volume and that Elliott’s 300-plus carries per year create a special category for him. And maybe they do.
But remember that while Elliott led the NFL in rushing, as a team the Cowboys ranked 10th in rushing yards and 13th in yards per attempt. That’s a lot closer to average than something truly special.