Jerry Jones stirred up a hornet’s nest when he quipped “Zeke who?” after watching rookie Tony Pollard shine in the Dallas Cowboys’ second preseason game.
It was clearly a joke. Yet when Ezekiel Elliott heard it, his agent says he felt “disrespected” by Jones. Because of course he did. Joke or not, it was a direct message from the team’s owner that he’s not happy about Elliott’s holdout.
Later on Monday, veteran tight end Jason Witten chimed in on this, and he was 100 percent behind Jones, saying, “I thought it was a beautiful comment,” per the Star-Telegram. He also said he hopes to see Elliott soon and rebuffed any notion that Elliott was upset about it.
“No, it wouldn’t bother me. It didn’t bother Zeke either,” he said. “Trust me, there’s nobody who loves Ezekiel Elliott more than Jerry Jones does. I wouldn’t have taken it that way and I’m sure Zeke didn’t either.”
I’m sure Witten wants to believe that. Yet based on the tenor of comments made publicly by the Cowboys brass about Elliott recently, it wouldn’t be surprising if he very much was taking all this extremely personally right now.