Cowboys Ex Ezekiel Elliott Signing with Bengals 'Looming Large,' Joe Mixon Getting Cut?
FRISCO - We will be frank here: After the way ESPN botched its reporting on the NFL future of Ezekiel Elliott, we will be taking with a grain of salt the network's tracking of Elliott's move from the Dallas Cowboys to his next team.
Having said that, the network is now reporting, via Jeremy Fowler, that the Cincinnati Bengals appear to be "looming large" as the favorite to land Elliott. Furthermore, Fowler asserts that the Bengals might sign Zeke, recently cut from the Cowboys, not just a supplement to Cincy star Joe Mixon ...
But rather, as his replacement.
"Talking to some teams and some people around the league, they believe the Bengals here could be looming large," Fowler said on NFL Live. "Because I'm told they're looking to add a running back, either through free agency or the draft. Either to pair with Joe Mixon, or if they were to move on from Mixon, they could save nearly $8 million in cap space.''
Oh-oh. The more Fowler talks here, the more the report wobbles back to where ESPN's Adam Schefter clumsily moved it on Thursday when he errantly reported that Elliott had "narrowed his options'' to the Jets, Eagles and Bengals.
Problems? For one, Bengals coach Zac Taylor has already politely denied the report from Schefter, which has turned out to be not a Zeke "option list'' but rather a "wish list'' dreamed up by somebody - maybe by Schefter himself.
Said Taylor: "There's a lot of great players that are available right now. We like our team as where it's at right now.''
Another problem: Fowler reporting that Elliott will be "paired'' with Mixon ... or that Mixon could be cut. It's true that the latter scenario has been discussed by Bengals officials; GM Duke Tobin recently said, "I don't know'' regarding the possibility, hardly a Mixon endorsement.
But ESPN's Zeke/Mixon cover-all-angles approach of "possibilities'' (Fowler also mentions Kareem Hunt in the mix) in the end is too vague to be taken seriously.
The fact is, ESPN's work on Elliott's future carries with it the distinct scent of "guessing.'' Schefter was simply wrong, in a way that embarrasses all parties. And Fowler could simply be coat-tailing on a Schefter report that ESPN has yet to acknowledge was false.
The future of Ezekiel Elliott makes for a compelling and interesting story, to Cowboys Nation and around the NFL. But when Fowler reports, "I do expect the Bengals to make a move at some point, and Elliott would sort of play into their mold of wanting a power option running game,'' we get stuck on the looseness of the phrase "sort of.'' ... and we're inclined toward skepticism from here on out regarding Bristol's work on this story.
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