Ezekiel Elliott had 240 yards on 29 touches, the most scrimmage yards he has had in a single game in his three-year career. It ranked as the seventh-most in team history.
“I’m beat up,” Elliott said. “I was already sore in the first quarter. I knew what type of game it was going to be. I knew how to grind through it. Rod [Smith] did a great job giving me spells when I needed [him] to.”
Elliott had 25 carries for 152 yards and caught four passes for 88 yards and a touchdown. His 29 touches tied for the sixth-most in his career.
“We were using him every way we could use him, and he was being effective,” Cowboys owner Jerry Jones said. “We tried to do it last week and had a couple of plays we’d like to have back, but this week he was making the plays. That catch over his shoulder when it all counted should be one we all remember, and I’m glad I got to see it. But I’ve never seen him play any better than he played today.”
Elliott, isolated on Jarrad Davis with 1:23 left, made an over-the-shoulder catch of a Dak Prescott pass for 34 yards to the Detroit 25. It set up the game-winning field goal on the final play.
“Zeke’s a great football player,” coach Jason Garrett said. “We try to get him the ball in a lot of different ways. We’ve tried to do that since he’s been with our team. Typically it’s by running it. But one of the big parts of the evaluation coming out was how productive of a receiver we felt he could be. When you give him opportunities, he typically takes advantage of them. In those particular cases, we just like the matchup of man-to-man coverages or we like how they’re playing it based off an action we see them using, and the execution around him was really good and he can typically take advantage of those plays.”
