Eagles

This Ezekiel Elliott Suspension Saga Is Some Bullshit

By Philip Keidel

Published: Oct 26th, 2017 · 5:17 PM EDT

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The Eagles’ surprising and exhilarating 6-1 start has understandably created wild hopes of playoff glory for a winning-starved city. As always, even when things go well for the Eagles, they don’t go easily. Those six wins were earned with significant reliance on the performances of linebacker Jordan Hicks and left tackle Jason Peters, neither of whom will play another snap this season.

You know who is still playing? Dallas Cowboys running back Ezekiel Elliott, who has yet to miss even a down this year despite the previously reported six-game suspension he was to receive for alleged violation of the National Football League’s conduct policy. Let’s just say for the moment…that’s interesting.

The Giants are not coming back from 1-6 without Odell Beckham Jr., and the Eagles already have a win over them anyway. The Redskins are in very deep trouble in the division, having lost twice to the Eagles and now facing a nasty run of games against NFC contenders (vs. Dallas, at Seattle, vs. Minnesota, at New Orleans). Even splitting those four would leave the Redskins 5-5 with conference and division record issues.

The Cowboys are now the only viable division threat, and the Birds still have to play them twice. Dallas’ 3-3 start has been uneven, but their 40-10 annihilation of the San Francisco 49ers over the weekend suggests that “America’s Team” is finding its way. It helps when your superstar running back totals 219 yards from scrimmage and scores three touchdowns.

That was @EzekielElliott's 3rd TD of the day! #DALvsSF #FeedZeke https://t.co/xcTNl7tKWA

— Dallas Cowboys (@dallascowboys) October 22, 2017

Through six games, Elliott has more than 500 rushing yards and more than 200 receiving yards. He’s scored six touchdowns. That’s a lot of production. It begs the question of where the Cowboys would be if Elliott had served the suspension from the start of the season and was now compelled to get himself up to game speed at Washington this weekend.

It’s hard to imagine that the Cowboys would be 3-3, though, and the whole thing reeks.

There is no use trying to litigate here whether Elliott actually did the sorry, awful things detailed in Deadspin’s reporting. Maybe we will find out what actually happened some day, or maybe not. If Elliott ever settles with the league, the details would almost certainly be buried in two-way confidentiality clauses.

The issue here is how the Cowboys, the league’s (and the world’s!) most valuable franchise, have managed to benefit from what can only be called the NFL’s own incompetence.

The league’s own website notes that, per Tulane University Sports Law Professor Gabriel Feldman, “(t)he NFLPA is challenging the process the NFL undertook to suspend Elliott — not the factual conclusions from its investigation.” We’re a long way from that, though.

“U.S. District Court Judge Katherine P. Failla confirmed Monday the hearing will take place on Oct. 30 at 5 p.m. ET. If the judge does not grant the NFL Players Association and Elliott a preliminary injunction, he will be suspended again. If she does, his suspension will continue to be on hold as the case makes its way through court.”

That’s yet another break the Cowboys have gratefully accepted owing to the honest but really deliberate work of the Federal court system. The Cowboys’ game against the Redskins is on October 29. That will be seven games Elliott will have played despite putatively being suspended. And, given the time it has taken the District Courts and the U.S. Courts of Appeals to rule definitively on the legitimacy of the suspension in the first place, it seems far more likely than not that Elliott will be allowed to play the balance of the Cowboys’ season.

From the same NFL.com report:

“It remains to be seen if Elliott will be suspended again this season or if this legal case will continue well into 2018.”

That’s not exactly a confident statement from the league’s own information dissemination organ.

Photo Credit: USA TODAY, Catalina Fragoso

Then again, whether league commissioner Roger Goodell would admit it or not, the league inadvertently and unwittingly benefits from Elliott staying on the field. With the league already having lost megawatt stars like Aaron Rodgers, JJ Watt, the aforementioned Beckham Jr. and others this season, seeing one of the Cowboys’ biggest attention-getters banished right now just isn’t in the league’s best interest.

The NFL effectively made Ray Rice disappear and separately put Adrian Peterson on the sidelines for most of an entire season for personal conduct policy violations. The league has some experience getting a suspension to stick. But Baltimore and Minnesota aren’t ratings needle-movers, which might explain the league’s relatively tepid zeal in this instance.

The Cowboys, conversely, are ratings gold. Elliott is one of their most important players. And he’s still playing, despite receiving that six-game suspension pursuant to the NFL’s arbitration system which an Appeals Court observed “may be flawed, (but) is the one that the N.F.L. and the players’ union had agreed to in their collective bargaining agreement.” The argument that Elliott was denied due process is one he should take up with his union, not the league.

There is plenty of fault to go around; Elliott (whose behavior was at the very least questionable), the NFLPA, the NFL, maybe even the league’s arbitrators who might have identified the flaws in the disciplinary proceeding and headed off the suspension.

No matter where the blame lies, though, this situation is a disgrace, and if the Eagles somehow blow the division with Elliott gashing their defense in that pair of games against the hated Cowboys, it will be all the harder to take.