Ezekiel Elliott is set to appear in court on Tuesday to appeal his six-game suspension, and there’s a chance the star running back could play in Week 1 whether the decision goes his way or not.
In fact, Mike Florio of Pro Football Talk believes there is a “very good chance” Elliott will be on the field when the Dallas Cowboys host the New York Giants on Sept. 10.
.@ProFootballTalk says the Zeke Elliott appeal is probably going to go to court, which means there's a "very good chance" he plays week one.
— Rob Guerrera (@StatsOnFire) August 29, 2017
The NFLPA has hired Jeffrey Kessler to represent Elliott. Kessler is known for going to war with the NFL, and he represented Tom Brady in the Deflategate case. While Brady ended up serving a four-game suspension, the case dragged out with appeals so long that he sat out the first four games of the 2017 season instead of 2016. Could something similar happen with Elliott?
Even Elliott’s camp reportedly believes the 22-year-old will lose his appeal, but there are other steps to take after that. Elliott is expected to seek a court injunction that would allow him to keep playing as he pursues taking the case to federal court.
The risk, of course, would be that Elliott exhausts all legal options and ends up having to serve the suspension later in the season or during the playoffs. Elliott’s representatives are expected to use evidence like this in an attempt to destroy the credibility of the woman who accused him of domestic violence, but this will likely turn into more of a labor issue than a matter of innocent versus guilty. As we saw with the Brady case, the NFL typically comes out on top. It’s all a matter of when that will happen.
