Marshall Faulk Says Ezekiel Elliott Won't Be Fully Ready for Week 1

Last week, Hall of Fame running back Marshall Faulk broke news by revealing that he was heading [...]

By John Newby

Last week, Hall of Fame running back Marshall Faulk broke news by revealing that he was heading down to Cabo to train Ezekiel Elliott. His ultimate goal was to make the Cowboys holdout throw up during a workout, but Faulk simply wanted to help make sure that Zeke was ready for the upcoming season. It's been nearly a week since Faulk headed south, so how is the training proceeding?

The former Rams star called in and discussed the matter with The Dan Patrick Show on Wednesday, providing a brief moment of insight into his time spent with Elliott. As Faulk explained, the Cowboys star will be ready for week one of the season, provided a deal gets done, but he may not be taking on the entire workload that fans are used to seeing.

"Play? Yes," Faulk said. "Play at a high level? Yes. But I would say, possibly run the risk, as any player would who was not in game-conditioned shape if you tried to play him the workload that the Cowboys use him. I don't think he's in that form that he could go out and do the things that we were accustomed to seeing him do for a whole game."

That being said, Faulk does believe that when a deal gets done, Zeke will be able to perform. He just has to essentially "warm-up" and get his body in mid-season form. Fortunately for the Cowboys, rookie Tony Pollard will be around to assist him by taking some of those extra snaps when Zeke needs a break.

While Faulk may be training Elliott to prepare him for this upcoming season, he doesn't actually know when the deal will be negotiated. All Faulk knows is that he needs to make sure that the star running back is ready to perform when called upon, but Zeke's agent has not given him a timeline. Faulk just hopes he isn't training Zeke in two weeks.

"I hope not," Faulk explained. "I hope not because I believe this Cowboys roster is probably the most talented roster that they've put together in a very long time. And they are one of the handful of teams in the NFC that legitimately has a chance of getting to the Super Bowl. I believe those chances are far greater with 21 back there."

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