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We haven’t seen much from Ezekiel Elliott since he returned to the Dallas Cowboys for the 2024 season. But Jerry Jones says the team is just saving him for later.

Elliott signed with Dallas during the offseason on a one-year deal worth up to $3 million. He was a valuable role player with the New England Patriots last season, but his role with the Cowboys has been limited so far this season.

Ezekiel Elliott has played a limited role for the Dallas Cowboys so far in 2024.

(Photo by Matthew Pearce/Icon Sportswire via Getty Images)

The two-time NFL rushing yards leader — who spent the first seven years of his career with the Cowboys — got only six touches in the team’s last game against Pittsburgh on Sunday, and, through five games, he has only 98 rushing yards on 30 total touches.

“It’s definitely a little different, but keep your head down,” Elliott told reporters earlier this week. “I just focus on being a good teammate. I’ve been focusing on continuing to help lead this team and I’m not making it about me, it’s about this football team [winning].”

Jerry Jones Shoots Down Report On Ezekiel Elliott

Clarence Hill Jr., a longtime Cowboys reporter for DLLS Sports, reported on Thursday that Elliott is “dumbfounded” by his lack of carries.

But Jones questions the accuracy of that report. During an appearance on 105.3 The Fan, the Cowboys owner said they are simply preserving their veteran running back so that he’ll be healthy for the postseason.

“That’s an exaggeration,” Jones said. “Dumbfounded is an exaggeration, a mischaracterization. It’s a bad description of how he feels about things. He’s very much aware of the part of the running game that he’s involved with. But more importantly — and I can’t emphasize this enough — we’re saving him, and we should be. We want him for, Rico [Dowdle] is an outstanding running back, … his big problem has been what? He’s had trouble with injuries throughout his career. So it’d be madness to just rely on him for the duration of the season and into the playoffs.

“Zeke is there, he will be there, because we want to protect him during this particular time, as much as anything.”

The problem with that logic, though, is that in order for the Cowboys to rely on Elliott in the playoffs, they have to make the playoffs first. And so far, their running game isn’t helping.

No offense to Dowdle, of course, who has 54 rushes for 221 yards so far this year. But, statistically, Dallas has one of the worst rushing attacks in the league. The Cowboys have averaged just 82 rushing yards per game through Week 5. It’s the second-worst production in the league, only besting the New York Jets.

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The Cowboys haven’t had much success in the red zone this year, either, scoring touchdowns on less than 50% of their trips inside the 20.

That said, Dallas is riding a two-game winning streak into its Week 6 home match-up against the Detroit Lions. And it sounds like — as long as the Cowboys find themselves in the win column — they’ll keep a pitch count on Ezekiel Elliott.