The Ezekiel Elliott contract holdout just went to a whole new level.

Dallas Cowboys owner Jerry Jones said Thursday night that he doesn’t expect the Pro Bowl running back to play with the team at the start of the regular season. The Cowboys open the season Sept. 8 at home against the Giants.

“I’m operating as though right now he’s going to miss regular-season games,” Jones said, per USA Today. “My entire expectation for what we’re putting together as a team right now would anticipate, with him holding out and not having any training camp, that he’s going to miss games.

“I just accept that.”

Elliott, 24, has two years and $12.8 million left on his contract, with him set to earn $3.8 million this season if he reports and $9 million next season.

Elliott, his agent Rocky Arceneaux and even Marshall Faulk, who is helping to keep Elliott in shape, have been in a war of words this summer with the Cowboys. Arceneaux said he and Elliott found Jones’ “Zeke who?” quip disrespectful, and Elliott recently reminded everyone in a Maxim interview that even Emmitt Smith didn’t play his whole career with the Cowboys.

“We need Zeke,” Jones said. “We’re a better team with Zeke. But we need to be able to win when we need to without players because of injuries, suspension or in this case, holdout.

“He can’t and won’t miss them all.”

Yet Jones, whose “Zeke who?” quip came after a promising performance by rookie running back Tony Pollard, isn’t going to take the step of reaching out to Elliott directly to talk dollars.

“Let me be real clear about something: I don’t negotiate with players,” Jones said. “I share with players my thoughts about our team and about why I have the position I have and to give them information as they’re assessing their decision. My discussion with players is something nobody, no agent, can have [because of] my perspective as the architect of the team. So I’m trying to get any player to understand why I’m making the decision I am. That’s not negotiating. That’s simply explaining the position. Negotiating is if I step over there and start saying, ‘I’ll give you this for that.’ I don’t do that with players.”