Getty Image / Michael Owens
The Dallas Cowboys have a big decision to make about their roster heading into the 2023 offseason.
Ezekiel Elliott’s performance has been declining and the Cowboys owe him a ton of money over the next few years.
Now they have to figure out whether or not they want to cut him this offseason.
According to NFL reporter Matt Lombardo, the Cowboys are going to ask Elliott to take a massive pay cut to stay with the team and he may not take the deal.
Multiple league sources tell me the pay cut the #Cowboys will ask Ezekiel Elliott to take will be “massive,” and there’s no guarantee he takes the deal.
More via @HeavyOnSports: https://t.co/hNY3nkJk4O pic.twitter.com/aVB2ich8Ml
— Matt Lombardo (@MattLombardoNFL) February 18, 2023
It looks like the Cowboys are starting to realize they made a mistake when they gave Ezekiel Elliott a contract worth $15 million per year that is supposed to run past his age 30 season.
Unfortunately for the Cowboys, he didn’t even come close to finishing out the deal before starting to show clear signs of decline.
Elliott was the 2nd best running back on the Cowboys’ roster last season and now they need to pay the best running back on their roster this offseason. That’s going to make it pretty difficult to justify taking a cap hit of almost $17 million for Zeke next season.
To make the situation worse, the Cowboys don’t even save all that much if they release him. Cutting Elliott would save them a little under $5 million in cap space.
A significant pay cut would be the best-case scenario for the Cowboys, but might not make a ton of sense for Elliott.
He is currently trying to find out what he can get from other teams on the open market if the Cowboys let him go.
Unless Elliott feels some overwhelming sense of loyalty to the Dallas Cowboys, we could see him playing elsewhere in 2023.