With former star running back Ezekiel Elliott returning to the Dallas Cowboys, fantasy football managers have a tough decision on their hands. Elliott joins a crowded Dallas backfield, most notably including Rico Dowdle competing for touches, so who is the best Cowboys running back to start in Week 1?
Should You Start Ezekiel Elliott or Rico Dowdle This Week?
In the Pro Football Network Start/Sit Optimizer, PFN’s consensus rankings say that Elliott is the player to start. In PPR leagues, his projected 7.8 points include 32.5 rushing yards, 1.45 receptions, and 8.7 receiving yards. That doesn’t seem like a big stat line, but it does slightly outperform the consensus projection for Dowdle (7.5 points).
My ranking for the Cowboys’ running backs aligns with the consensus due in large part to Elliott’s very presence in Dallas. It’s not particularly likely that he would have returned without at least some indication that he’d be receiving lead-back volume, especially around the goal line.
The depth chart on the Cowboys’ team website also lists Elliott as the top back. However, this doesn’t always indicate a completely ironclad status.
Elliott’s Fantasy Outlook This Week
Elliott had the least productive rushing season of his pro career last year in his lone campaign as a New England Patriot. His per-carry yardage only took a small dip compared to his last year in Dallas, but his total touches fell off significantly, with 47 fewer carries and nine fewer touchdowns on the ground.
However, Elliott was a much more productive receiver in 2023 than in 2022. His receptions total leaped from a career-low 17 to 51, and his yardage from 92 to 313.
Fantasy wise, this could be a significant distinction in PPR or half-PPR formats. Should we expect Elliott to replicate last year’s receiving output or go back to the low volume of his final year in his last stint as a Cowboy?
Simply put, 2022 looks like an outlier. Elliott didn’t catch many passes in his first two seasons, but other than those, his second-lowest total in any season is 47 in 2021.
At the time, Elliott’s low production in 2022 looked like a step in his evolution as a player. But after a strong receiving season in New England and the departure of then-Cowboys offensive coordinator Kellen Moore, we can expect Elliott to be a factor through the air once again.
Dowdle’s Fantasy Outlook This Week
With Elliott out of town for the first time since 2015, Dowdle was the second-leading rusher on the 2023 Cowboys behind Tony Pollard. Dowdle’s per-carry yardage was very similar to Pollard’s, showing promise that he can be a top option going forward.
But is this the season in which he’ll take that leap? It’s not particularly likely.
Dowdle carried the ball 89 times last year, a career high after a tough start to his pro career. However, when Pollard was being set up as the successor to Elliott himself, he received 193 carries compared to Elliott’s 231 in 2022.
Dowdle should have a role on this team as a key second back, or perhaps even a 1b of sorts. But for the time being, fantasy managers shouldn’t rely on him as a high-volume option.
Kyle Soppe’s Fantasy Outlook for Elliott and Dowdle in Week 1
Ezekiel Elliott: Zeke’s stat line last season was an unmitigated disaster, and if you watched the games, it looked even worse. Do you know those science lab situations where a mouse is asked to find the cheese at the end of a maze?
That’s what 2023 was for Elliott — he was the mouse, but the cheese had no scent … and the walls were really high … and there was a moat filled with lava in the middle that required him to tightrope across … while juggling marbles.
Zeke might be washed. He probably is. But the situation glow up is tough to overstate: #FantasyFootball pic.twitter.com/HEUCAUChVx
— Kyle Soppe (@KyleSoppePFN) August 27, 2024
He was put in a position to fail, and he did, something that tells us almost nothing. I suspect the age curve is near, but I can’t in good faith use last season as proof of that. Dallas brought him back in hopes of recapturing his past form, something that is unlikely to happen but should land him a favorable role out of the gates.
There is some versatility in this profile and touchdown upside by default. The Browns allowed a league-low 0.69 yards per carry before contact to running backs last season (that’s under nine inches), furthering my opinion that this isn’t going to be a pretty stat line. That said, a touchdown and a handful of targets is an RB2 profile, and his path to such a week is certainly there.
It’s easy to forget now, but Cleveland was the worst red-zone defense in the league last season, allowing six points on 71.4% of drives that crossed their 20-yard line. Of course, making it that far isn’t a given, but no defense was better at it last season than Dallas; Tony Pollard did lead the league in carries inside the opposing 30-yard line last season.
Elliott ranks ahead of Rico Dowdle in this backfield, ahead of other touchdown-reliant RBs (Gus Edwards and Ray Davis), and ahead of short-end-of-a-committee types (Zach Charbonnet, Ty Chandler, and Austin Ekeler, to name a few). That’s still not enough to earn him a spot in my top 30, but in a deeper league, I’d understand Flexing him to open the season and hoping that this offense as a whole props him up.
Rico Dowdle: I don’t have a problem with holding Dowdle; he could be an asset in rather short order if Elliott is cooked, but the wait-and-see approach is best to use here. His next NFL game with 14+ touches will be his first, meaning that even if he transitions to the leader of this backfield, it may be a slow burn for him to prove worthy of our trust.
Dallas is going to create scoring opportunities, and that will put their top ball carrier in the Flex discussion at the very least. That might be doable with time, we just can’t assume it quite yet.