Jerry Jones on Ezekiel Elliott returning to Cowboys: No timeline, even months into season

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What I’m Hearing: Jori Epstein is at Cowboys training camp in Oxnard, CA and she breaks down what she’s hearing following Dallas’ decision to sign Alfred Morris while Ezekiel Elliott continues his holdout.
USA TODAY

OXNARD, Calif. — Jerry Jones doesn’t see a deadline.

He says he’s not compelled to extend Ezekiel Elliott by this week, or by the Aug. 6 date at which Elliott would lose a year accrued toward free agency, or by the Dallas Cowboys’ season opener Sept. 8 against the New York Giants.

“I don’t see a point,” Jones said after the team practiced Thursday, a week after Elliott missed the Cowboys charter to Southern California. “I don’t see a point. I don’t see a point months into the season. I don’t see a point.”

Jones isn’t rushing an extension for his star running back and says he won’t ruin a good young core needing a slew of contract extensions to overpay Elliott.

That doesn’t mean the owner is ready to part ways with the fourth overall selection of the 2016 NFL draft.

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Jones, like teammates and coaches, said he’s “very satisfied long term” with Elliott anchoring Dallas’ run-first offense. “Very satisfied,” he repeated for emphasis, but that doesn’t convince the Cowboys owner he should pay what Elliott wants.

“As far as doing something that would disrupt and shake the base of our plans for how to keep the talent we’ve got here and how to do that, I’m not about to shake that loose over that concern,” Jones said. “We do have agreements and we do have contracts. … and they do bite when you don’t play.”

The Cowboys could fine Elliott $40,000 per day he’s missed should they choose. Thursday was Day 7 from the team’s mandatory reporting date last Friday. Jones said simply on Friday of Elliott: “He is late.” But a week in, with Elliott training in Cabo San Lucas, Jones said he trusts Elliott to be conscientious about conditioning.

“I’m not concerned about him missing reps,” Jones said.

Teammates have said the same. Elliott is in touch with running backs coach Gary Brown about staying in shape from afar while he takes his business stance. Center Travis Frederick has visited the Cabo San Lucas facility Elliott returned to (he trained there during his 2017 suspension as well) and said Elliott will have what he needs to be ready.

The league’s defending rushing champion will have decisions to make as the season nears, but the owner continues to reiterate that Super Bowl teams rarely front the league’s rushing champion.

“You have to put in place more than a running back to win a championship,” Jones said. “That is almost elementary. Everybody who is involved with contracts understand that. Certainly individually they want to be recognized when it comes to money but it has to fit our plan.

“Or it doesn’t work with our house and our house falls.”

Consider the landlords adamant. Cowboys executive vice president Stephen Jones said Wednesday that the team is “damn sure not going to be a market setter” doling out lucrative contract extensions. Strong draft classes have enabled the Cowboys to stockpile talent. But several contracts for that talent near expiration. Players, including quarterback Dak Prescott and defensive end DeMarcus Lawrence, remind the Jones family that cap management is not their job.

“For somebody to say you can only take so much because of the salary cap or you can only do this or that, I don’t know how fair that is to say,” Prescott told USA TODAY Sports last month. “Because with gambling, with everything going into this league, everything is going to continue to keep going up.

“It’s important for all these guys to get every bit of their worth. I want to see Zeke the highest paid. I want to see Amari the highest paid. I want to see myself up there. And I don’t think any of that is too far-fetched. Because at the end of the day, when it’s all said and done, a year or two later, you’re not going to be the highest paid. That’s just the way the game goes.”

Jerry Jones said he doesn’t need all agents to buy into the team-friendly philosophy.

“Where it needs to be sold and delivered,” he said, “is at the checkwriting spot.”

So Jones continues to simultaneously refuse to bend to player and agent demands, while he also voices support for each player seeking an extension. No, the owner said, Elliott’s holdout doesn’t make Jones regret standing up to the NFL when Elliott was suspended six games for allegations of domestic violence. “I felt strongly that Zeke had the high ground,” he said of the 2017 battle.

And he’s not surprised they arrived at a standstill.

“So I have anticipated — I do with every player — a time when no matter how together you are, your thoughts as teammates or organization mates, there comes a time when your interests diverge,” Jones said. “And you got to sit down there and reconcile it. That just happens. That is what we are in to.

“I have done it a lot more than these players have so I have a little more — I don’t want to seem trite, I don’t want to seem cavalier about it — but I have a little more patience with how things are going to get done and the necessity to have angst when you have it to make sure that you really at the end of this day have this thing as complete. Complete being that we have as much talent on this team under the same roof as we can. That is impossible to do. But you have to try hard to get it done.

“That is what we are doing here.”

Follow USA TODAY Sports’ Jori Epstein on Twitter @JoriEpstein.

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