Can Zeke muster up one more solid RB1/2 season? Or, is he done?
Redraft Outlook
Ezekiel Elliott is a HUGE injury risk. No relevant runner in fantasy football has close to as many touches (near 2000 touches)…to put that volume into perspective, Christian McCaffrey has 1,138 total touches and is breaking down to the point that he’s now a second-round staple in early 2022 mocks. Zeke cannot be trusted to last the season, nor will he get all the work. Tony Pollard is a must-cuff rusher if you draft Zeke in 2022. Pollard has standalone win-a-league appeal, too; but I will add that if Zeke falls to round 4ish, he and Pollard, as a duo, make a crafty RB1 for someone trying a WR/WR/Josh Allen approach.
Dynasty Outlook
There is no solid reason to own Zeke in dynasty, unless you already own the guy and cannot get rid of him. As mentioned above, Zeke holds some value in a Pollard/Zeke handcuff situation, but this would only be of use if you went very heavy at WR and QB or TE, then resorted to a Zeke/Pollard duo to field an undervalued RB1-2 stable. I often look at this approach when trying out WR/WR/WR strategies, as it’s one of the only real ways to field a decent RB situation in a zero RB strategy (and in dynasty you can get the duo even cheaper). All that said, there is a realistic chance that Pollard holds the starting job in Dallas all by himself by Week 10, at which point he could be dropping top 10RB numbers per start. So, in many ways I like going after a Travis Etienne or a rookie RB over Zeke, but in dynasty that’s sometimes hard to pull off.