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Jerry Jones simply doesn\u2019t see a problem. And he can\u2019t understand why the question keeps coming up.<\/p>\n
The Cowboys owner made his weekly call-in to Dallas radio station 105.3 The Fan on Friday, and he went into full-blown denial mode when asked about the team\u2019s current running back situation.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis is a little bit of a first for me,\u201d he\u00a0told the\u00a0K&C Masterpiece\u00a0<\/em>show on Friday, \u201cbecause I\u2019ve never seen such made of our position and what we\u2019re doing at that position- running back- this year and not having done this or not having done that at running back.\u201d<\/p>\n The Cowboys found themselves in quite a pickle over the offseason in regard to the ground game. Tony Pollard was deemed too expensive to keep and was allowed to leave in free agency. Rather than pursue one of several high-profile rushers on the open market, the Cowboys instead brought sentimental favorite Ezekiel Elliott back on a cheap one-year deal.<\/p>\n Then the club opted not to look to the draft for any new talent at the position, deciding to go into the regular season with a committee that also included Rico Dowdle, Deuce Vaughn, and Hunter Luepke. Dalvin Cook was added late in the offseason, but he has yet to make it off the practice squad after a summer of working out on his own.<\/p>\n Given all that, the results on the field have been predictably lousy.<\/p>\n Over two games, only eight teams have fewer rushing attempts than Dallas\u2019s 46. They have just 170 rushing yards; only six teams have amassed fewer. They are tied for the sixth-lowest yards-per-carry average (3.7) in the league. The team\u2019s biggest ground gain of the season so far is 12 yards, tying them with two other squads for the shortest long run.<\/p>\n Elliott and Dowdle are dead even for the team lead with 56 yards each, but that puts them in only\u00a049th and 50th place among all ballcarriers\u00a0leaguewide. In fact, they both rank lower than\u00a0every other club\u2019s<\/em>\u00a0top rusher, and 17 teams- more than half the NFL- have\u00a0two rushers<\/em>\u00a0ahead of them on the yardage list.<\/p>\n Yet Jones was blunt: he\u2019s not even thinking about bolstering the group.<\/p>\n \u201cRunning back is just not on our radar as far as an area of interest,\u201d he snapped.<\/p>\n The 81-year-old went even further, claiming that no one in his circle of influence is even discussing the running back position as a concern.<\/p>\n \u201cI don\u2019t have anybody else in the world asking me about this but some media,\u201d Jones offered. \u201cA few of the media have gotten out here and written some stories early about how we\u2019re going to go with a running back in the draft or how we need a running back, and they\u2019re trying to cover their you-know-what as we go through the season.\u201d<\/p>\n He summarily dismissed the idea of activating Cook from the practice squad (and not for the first time this week), saying, \u201cI don\u2019t know that that will happen.\u201d<\/p>\n And he sounded perfectly content to stick with the rushing attack he has now, despite the uninspiring numbers posted above.<\/p>\n So Sunday\u2019s Week 3 contest will feature Elliott on one sideline, with the Ravens\u2019 Derrick Henry on the other. The Cowboys could have made a move to acquire Henry in the offseason, and most observers-\u00a0including Henry himself<\/a>\u2013 thought it would have been an ideal match.<\/p>\n Instead, Henry comes to town wearing Baltimore purple with a significantly better yards-per-carry average this season (4.2) than Elliott and Dowdle, and more rushing yards (130) than Elliott, Dowdle, Vaughn, and Luepke\u00a0combined<\/em>.<\/p>\n But in Jones\u2019s mind, Henry and Elliott are basically the same.<\/p>\n \u201cBoth of these guys came out at the same time,\u201d he said. \u201cWe\u2019ve got a pretty good contemporary of our competition this week in Zeke Elliott. I\u2019m pleased with what Zeke is doing.\u201d<\/p>\n The emperor in Dallas has no clothes. And the Cowboys have no running game.<\/p>\n And the man in charge can\u2019t- or won\u2019t- admit it.<\/p>\n