Will Ezekiel Elliott Bounce Back in 2021? (Fantasy Football)

The twelvemonth is 2019. While holding out on his contract, Ezekiel Elliott is relaxing and training in Cabo San Lucas, Mexico. Over the grade of forty days, he enjoys the sunshine, the workouts, and the nutrient and returns stateside to the massive contract he was hoping for. In September of that year, Elliott became the highest-paid running dorsum in NFL history, signing a six-year contract extension worth $90 million, with $l meg guaranteed. Elliott went on to have a fantastic 2019 season, finishing as running dorsum four, with nigh 1400 yards rushing and 12 rushing TDs, not to mention over 400 yards receiving and ii receiving TDs.

Fast forrard to summer 2020. Living in a very dissimilar world, instead of training in Mexico, Elliott was recovering from COVID. Thankful to have balmy symptoms, Elliott nevertheless had to approach his preseason training very differently. After existence unable to train for a calendar month and quarantining, Elliott was able to join teammates in QB Dak Prescott'south backyard for an unconventional pre-flavor. Hopes were loftier for the Cowboys, stacked with offensive weapons to make a playoff run. Then in week five, Dak got injured, and it just seemed that the Dallas Cowboys hype railroad train, which Ezekiel Elliott was at least the co-conductor of, simply screeched to an abrupt halt. Whatsoever sparkle that Elliott showed in the first quarter of the season seemed gone. The Cowboys limped through the rest of the season, ending with a 5-10 record. Zeke managed to stop as RB xi, which most owners would be happy to have on their fantasy squad, only it was the lowest Elliott had ever finished. As he enters his sixth flavour in the league, are we looking at a bounciness-back season? What does Elliott have left in the tank?

Co-ordinate to the UDK consensus rankings, Ezekiel Elliott is currently ranked as the viithursday RB coming off the board. Elliott is being drafted nearly the cease of the beginning round. This is at a point in your typhoon where you might take to decide betwixt a starting RB or taking a strong left with your draft plan and going Travis Kelce or Davante Adams. There are a few things to expect at when determining whether or non Elliott still has an abundance of air in his tires.

Age Ain't Cipher Only a Number

We have heard the age-quondam aphorism from Mike many times, "Momma, don't permit your babies abound upwards to be running backs." According to pro-football game-reference, RBs peak at the youngest age of the four main positional players, unremarkably peaking between age 23 and 25. Decline traditionally starts from 26 to 28, with a more severe decline taking place after age 28. With Elliott at 26 years onetime at the start of the 2021 flavour, this is definitely a business organization. How many more than years does he have left?

Just for every historic period truther, I offer yous the example of our favorite Yeti, Derrick Henry. Granted, the question of Henry producing another meridian-two fantasy flavour in 2021 is left to be answered, but he is a year older than Elliott. Henry begins the 2021 flavor at 27 years old, and although analysts every season say that his numbers will go downwardly, they accept continued to improve.  Barry Sanders and Adrian Peterson are other examples of RBs who continued to superlative by 26. Betwixt ages 27 to 30, Peterson had 3 years rushing over ane,200 yards with double-digit touchdowns. In improver, Sanders ran over 1,400 yards each season from age 26 to age 30. When considering age when it comes to RBs, this is where you lot have to decide who the outliers are when yous draft.

At that place are clearly outliers when information technology comes to this statistic, and what is there to say that Zeke volition not be an outlier, and therefore have more than peak years in him? 1 thing that could undoubtedly assistance Zeke this year would be a improve offensive line to run behind. Brusk of the Philadelphia Eagles offensive line, in that location was no other worse identify to be in 2020 than Dallas if you were an O-lineman. In addition to their center retiring, the Cowboys lost six offensive linemen to injury in 2020. They finished the season ranked by PFF as the 27th offensive line. This yr PFF is ranking them vith. This jump bodes well for Elliott.

Running Through the Air

A statistic that might betoken more than to Zeke being past his peak deals more with his receptions. Looking back, 2018 – when Zeke was 24 years old – was non but an excellent twelvemonth for him rushing; he had his best flavor yet with catching the football game. Elliott was targeted with a laissez passer 95 times that season, which was the 5th highest amongst RBs. He had 567 receiving yards, averaging 5.1 receptions per game – at that point, career highs for Elliott. The thing that is concerning is that since 2018, pretty much all of his receiving metrics have gone down. His average receptions per game, his receiving targets, and his receiving totals all decreased in 2019 and further decreased in 2020. Granted, Elliott did not accept Dak Prescott for the bulk of 2020. Herein lies an integral piece of the Ezekiel Elliott conundrum. Does Elliott's success, the possibility of him squeaking out at least one more peak RB operation year, depend on the success of Prescott? I say yes. And understand that even if, for some reason, Zeke had to play without Dak again this year, I believe he would be a solid RB. Only, he would non be a league winner. The nautical chart below shows the total fantasy points scored each week by the Dallas QB in 2020, as well as Elliott's corresponding fantasy points. In the five weeks that Dak Prescott was at the helm, Zeke averaged 19.94 fantasy points. In the weeks that another QB was throwing passes for the Cowboys, Zeke'south boilerplate fantasy points plummeted to a nine.8 average.

Practise not hear what I am not saying; Ezekiel Elliott is a great RB and will be a great RB for fantasy this season – every bit he has been for every season prior. The issue here is, If you are drafting Elliott shut to his current ADP, you are cyberbanking on a peak-five production from him to feel like he was worth his draft capital letter. Drafting a role player that early on, y'all are expecting a sure thing, barring injury. In my opinion, I am taking the shot. I believe Zeke has one amazing top-five RB season left in him. I believe that he is coming into the season excited to play with Dak again and very, very hungry. If yous are drafting him at his current ADP, you amend promise, similar I do, that he gets fed.