SPORTS USA TODAY z THURSDAY, OCTOBER 31, 2019 z 5C
FRISCO, Texas – Cowboys running
back Ezekiel Elliott grills the meat.
Hot dogs, steak, smoked sausages.
Want chicken? He can grill chicken
breasts or wings, and he’ll even make
chicken burgers. He taught himself one
summer in college.
Sides range from mac and cheese and
mashed potatoes to green beans and
broccoli. And often when Elliott cooks,
he makes enough to feed himself and
rookie running backs Tony Pollard and
Mike Weber. Elliott began inviting them
over for barbecue after Dallas drafted
each last spring. The first invite sur-
prised Pollard.
“I wasn’t expecting that from a guy
like him, being who he is,” Pollard told
USA TODAY Sports. “But it wasn’t like
he had an ego.”
Some players in the situation might
have. Speculation about the Cowboys’
future at running back swirled when
they drafted not one but two backs de-
spite suiting up the rushing titleholder.
Was there truth to rumors Elliott wanted
an extension with two years left on his
deal? Did Dallas seek a reliable back to
spell Elliott after he racked up a league-
high 381 touches in 2018? Or did first-
year offensive coordinator Kellen Moore
envision a tandem like the Saints’ previ-
ous duo of Alvin Kamara and Mark In-
gram?
All three turned out true.
Elliott ignored the noise, dismissed
the sense that young backs would pose
a threat, and took Pollard and Weber un-
der his wing, he says.
“Just to help them grow as players,”
Elliott told USA TODAY Sports. “My job
as a leader is make sure they’re prepared
for when they’re in there. Let’s say
something happens to me: I owe it to
this team to make sure they’re as pre-
pared as I can.”
Seven games into the season, Cow-
boys coaches and players say Elliott has.
‘Be aware of a bunch of guys’
Elliott first invited Pollard and Weber
over during offseason activities in May.
Weber and Elliott were friends as team-
mates at Ohio State in 2015. Pollard and
Elliott first connected after the draft,
when the veteran messaged the fourth-
round pick on Instagram.
“He was actually the first one to reach
out,” Pollard said. “Just saying congrat-
ulations, he was glad to have me as part
of the team and just be ready to work.”
From organized team activities and
minicamp, the trio did. Elliott still sits
between Pollard and Weber in meetings
to explain schemes to them. They follow
his lead in individual drill reps and pick
his brain in broader installations. Lead-
ing up to training camp, they visited El-
liott and his three dogs at home. They’d
carve out about 30 minutes a visit to re-
view the playbook.
If the linebacker does A, you do B. If
the linebacker does C, you do D.
“He’ll just throw out different scenar-
ios because you get a lot of different
looks in the game,” Weber said. “So he’d
throw every look he has experienced
and basically show us so when we go
out there, we know what to expect also.”
Into the season, that relationship has
continued.
The trio no longer break down film to-
gether at home, spending enough hours
in position and offensive meetings at
the Star to game prep. Visits to Elliott’s
home are instead now time to decom-
press – watch movies, laugh and joke,
and tease Weber for how strikingly they
think he resembles one of Elliott’s dogs,
Jack Jack.
But in meetings, walkthroughs and
practice, Elliott lets younger backs
know: Here’s the ideal cut when the
tackles block on a certain play. Here’s
how this opponent’s linebackers tend to
attack. Eagles safety Malcolm Jenkins is
stacking the box and edging closer to
the line of scrimmage? Be ready to pro-tect because “more than likely,” Pollard
learned from Elliott, “he’ll be blitzing.”
The result: The Cowboys are averag-
ing 146 rushing yards per game (up from
122.7 last year) and during four games
have averaged at least 5.3 yards per car-
ry. Against the Eagles two Sundays ago,
they ripped off 189 on a defense that en-
tered the contest allowing 73.2 per
game. Elliott led the way with 111 yards
on 22 carries, but Pollard pitched in 28
yards on eight carries, including a slash-
ing 11-yarder that teammates initially
thought was over in the backfield. Quar-
terback Dak Prescott pitched in 30 yards
and a score on six carries, while Tavon
Austin juked an Eagles corner out of his
job – Orlando Scandrick was cut by the
team a day later – on his sole rush for a
20-yard score.
Each ball carrier contributed impor-
tant yards to march down the field. But
the collection of rushers also left Philly’s
D guessing who would threaten next.
“You’ve got to be aware of a bunch of
guys on the field,” right guard Zack Mar-
tin said. “Not just 21 (Elliott).”
Up 14-7 in the second quarter, the
Cowboys demanded that. Prescott
faked a handoff to Elliott on 4th-and-
before leveraging each of their running
threats to elude defenders on a 9-yard
pass to Elliott in the flat. The next two
plays: Pollard clawed for 11 yards on a
run, then Prescott gained 7. Three plays,
three different playmakers, each wear-
ing out a defense en route to Dallas’
third touchdown of the half.“I like to look at the defense as like a
shield,” Elliott said in the aftermath of
the 37-10 win. “In the first quarter, you
hit ’em a couple of times, you’re going to
dent the shield, you’re going to make it
splinter a little bit. But you know, if you
keep hitting it, little pieces will keep
breaking off, and eventually it’s going to
break.”Spelling ZekeThe Cowboys hope that using Pollard
will prevent Elliott from breaking down
as fast.
No doubt, Moore says, Elliott will re-
main the centerpiece, just as his six-
year, $90 million extension suggests.
Through seven games, Elliott has
rushed for 602 yards and six scores on
135 carries in addition to catching 24
balls for 176 more yards. During Dallas’
three-game skid, when the team repeat-
edly fell behind, Pollard was used spar-
ingly. But in four wins, he’s contributed
16 to 23 offensive snaps a contest, even
joining Elliott over 100 yards against the
Dolphins. (Weber is a practice squad
member.)
The result: Elliott feels comfortable
resting for a series or two a game in
hopes of staying fresher in the third and
fourth quarters. Even more important to
a Cowboys team that believes it has the
talent to contend, Elliott anticipates
feeling fresher into December and Janu-
ary.
“It’s a long season,” he told USA
TODAY Sports during the bye week. “I
feel how my body felt last year when I
had all those carries. If I can spell myself
now so later on in the season I feel more
fresh and ready to play, it’s for the better
of the team.”
So, too, Elliott believes, are the con-
sistent invitations he gives Pollard and
Weber to come over.
“The better relationships you have,”
Elliott said, “the better we can work to-
gether and the better we can become as
players.”
Elliott’s grilling, however, might not
need improvement. So far, the rookie
backs are impressed.
Weber insists Elliott is “actually real-
ly good at barbecuing.”
Pollard, whose parents own a barbe-
cue joint in Memphis, says Elliott is
“pretty good,” even by his family’s high
standards.
“I like the chicken,” Pollard added. “I
think the chicken, we could put that in
the restaurant.
“He’s a pretty good cook.”Zeke takes Cowboys’ RBs under his wing
Jori Epstein
USA TODAY
Running back Ezekiel Elliott, right, has helped ease the transition to the NFL for
fellow Cowboys running back Tony Pollard. GEOFF BURKE/USA TODAY SPORTSPITTSBURGH – He was handpicked
by John Elway to be the Broncos’ next
franchise quarterback, an athletic 6-
passer with beguiling potential whom
the team traded up to select in the 2016
NFL draft.
Then, a little more than two years lat-
er, Paxton Lynch was off the team – and,
for the entirety of the 2018 season, out of
football.
“It is what it is,” he told USA TODAY
Sports. “Everybody has their own jour-
ney, you know?”
Most recently, that journey has
brought Lynch to Pittsburgh, where the
Steelers signed him to the practice
squad in the wake of Ben Roethlisberg-
er’s season-ending elbow injury last
month, then promoted him to the active
roster three weeks ago.
Now, as fellow 2016 draftees Jared
Goff and Carson Wentz have become
entrenched starters with nine-figure
contracts, the 25-year-old Lynch is try-
ing to prove he’s worthy of another
chance in the NFL – and, by extension,
disprove the “bust” label with which
he’s been branded.
“Everybody’s going to have their own
opinion, obviously,” Lynch said, when
asked about being labeled a bust. “So-
cial media nowadays kind of gives ev-
erybody an outlet to comment on what
they want to comment on and be heard
on what they want to be heard on, their
opinions.
“I know what kind of player I can be. I
know where I can get to. So it’s just
keeping my head down and working,
and then being able to show that when-
ever I get the opportunity.”
Lynch’s fall from potential franchise
savior to practice squad (and then third-
string) quarterback has been remark-
ably swift, in part because of his unusu-
ally brief tenure in Denver.
The Broncos cut the Memphis prod-
uct last fall, prior to his third season, af-
ter he failed to beat out Trevor Siemian,
Brock Osweiler and Case Keenum at
various points over parts of two years.
He threw for 792 yards, four touch-
downs and four interceptions in just five
regular-season appearances in Denver;
since at least 2000, no first-round quar-
terback has played in fewer games be-
fore being cut by the team that drafted
him.
“I would’ve obviously liked to have
had more opportunities to play (in Den-
ver),” Lynch said. “I feel like that’s good
for everybody. Any young player, to de-
velop, I feel like you’ve got to play those
guys. ... But it just didn’t go that way.”
After being released last September,
Lynch had workouts with 10 NFL teams
but didn’t latch on with a team until Jan-
uary, when the Seahawks signed him to
a future contract. He competed for the
chance to back up Russell Wilson before
suffering a concussion in the preseason
and ultimately losing that battle to Geno
Smith.
That’s where the Steelers came in.
Offensive coordinator Randy Ficht-
ner was on hand for Lynch’s pro day in
2016 and came away impressed with his
arm strength and potential. So when
Roethlisberger had elbow surgery and
Lynch was available, the Steelers moved
to take advantage of what Fichtner
called “a unique opportunity” to see
what the lanky quarterback could offer.
“Sometimes when you get drafted in
the first round, there’s a certain expec-
tation that gets put on top of you – that
we’re going to roll the ball out and you’re
going to be a franchise quarterback,”
Fichtner said. “That may not happen
overnight. It may not happen in your
first contract.
“That doesn’t mean that it might not
happen for you, if you keep your nose tothe grind and you eventually hook on in
that right fit, with that right team style,
that right staff, that right system. You
just never know.”
Now, Lynch is working to pick up
what is his fourth offensive system in
four years. The Steelers actually gave
him some first-team repetitions during
their recent bye week in an effort to
evaluate him and gauge his understand-
ing of the system.
In a weird way, Fichtner said, Lynch
has become the grizzled veteran in a
room that, without Roethlisberger, con-
sists of second-year quarterback Mason
Rudolph and undrafted rookie Devlin
Hodges.
“I wonder what happened (in Den-
ver) sometimes, but your past has noth-ing to do with your future,” added Steel-
ers practice squad receiver Tevin Jones,
who played with Lynch at Memphis.
“The only thing I do know is that he’s a
lot better now than he was before, from
what I’ve seen. I’m just glad that he’s
here.”
So is Lynch.
Though he never could have predic-
ted that he would be here in Pittsburgh,
on his third NFL team in four years, he
said he is staying positive.
“Obviously my plan is not the plan
that God has for my life right now,”
Lynch said. “If I would’ve planned it out,
I wish I would’ve been starting in Den-
ver or still in Denver. But I’m not, so my
journey is where I’m at. I’m supposed to
be where I’m at right now.”Former first-round QB Lynch clinging to career
Tom Schad
USA TODAY
Steelers quarterback Paxton Lynch has played in five NFL games but none since
the end of the 2017 season. KEITH SRAKOCIC/APNFL