Ezekiel Elliott has not said much about his contract standoff with Dallas, but in a retweet on Friday, the Cowboys running back dropped a strong hint of what he’s looking for.
Elliott’s Twitter account retweeted a comment by former Cleveland Browns offensive lineman Joe Thomas. In that tweet, Thomas suggested that players who are cited as the best at their position often sign a second contract worth 15 to 20 percent more than the current highest-paid player at that position. All of those scenarios apply to Elliott, who is considered one of the best backs in the NFL and is in line to sign his second contract with the Cowboys.
Throughout the course of NFL history, if you are the best player at your position (or clearly one of the best) when you re-sign a second contract with the team that drafted you, you usually beat the highest paid current contract at your position by 15 to 20%.
— Joe Thomas (@joethomas73) August 23, 2019
At the moment, the highest average running back salary in the NFL is that of Rams back Todd Gurley, who’s averaging $14,375,000 per season. A 15 percent raise on that would come out to slightly over $16.5 million per year, which may be an indicator of what Elliott is looking for from the Cowboys. Elliott has been consistently better than Gurley statistically when healthy. In his two full seasons of action, the Cowboys star has rushed for 1,631 and 1,434 yards, both leading the NFL and both better than Gurley’s career high of 1,305 yards in 2017.
While public negotiations and statements have taken a negative turn in recent days, there appears to be growing optimism that a deal could come quite soon. Elliott simply appears to be sharing a public reminder of what he feels he deserves for his accomplishments.
