Daniel C. Houston

WFAA

DALLAS - When the Dallas Cowboys were on the clock in April with the No. 4 pick in the draft, I expected them to take running back Ezekiel Elliott—I just didn't want them to.

My reluctance had nothing to do with his talent. I believed the Cowboys could get another very good running back in a later round. Our top-flight draft capital could then be spent on a potentially elite defensive back who would have a direct impact on the passing game.

Success in the NFL has been primarily tied to the passing game for a while now. But in April, when the Cowboys submitted their card drafting Elliott from Ohio State, I didn't realize what a difference a blue-chip running back talent could make behind an offensive line this dominant.

So, somewhat unexpectedly, I now find myself making the case that Elliott, not a quarterback, should receive the Most Valuable Player award in a league where passing effectively—and frustrating opposing passers—is the main driver of success.

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Just ask another Cowboys rookie, whose unprecedented success in 2016 wrested the starting quarterback job from a veteran All-Pro passer.

"If anybody on this team is MVP, I think it's the running back," Dak Prescott said of Elliott to reporters last month. "He definitely opens up my game."

The statistics tell the same story. This year I spent time on Pro Football Reference tracking Prescott's performance on drives in which Elliott was on the bench. Most of these drives came in the second quarter of games, when the outcome was still very much on the line but Cowboys coaches chose to keep Elliott rested.

On drives when backup running backs like Alfred Morris or Darren McFadden got the bulk of the carries, Prescott completed 42 of 68 passes for 424 yards, three touchdowns and zero interceptions. He was also sacked four times for a total loss of 25 yards, bringing his net yards on these passing plays to 399.

This may not seem all that bad on first glance, but notice the drop in efficiency. With Elliott out of the game, defenses were able to limit Prescott to 5.5 net yards per attempt—roughly equivalent to that of the 29th-ranked San Francisco 49ers.

On all other drives—almost all of which featured a healthy dose of Elliott—Prescott averaged 7.6 net yards per attempt, matching the league's No. 2 passing offense in Washington. With Elliott's presence forcing defenses to load the box and clog the middle of the field, Prescott has excelled picking apart secondaries in short-range territory and along the sidelines. Thanks in large part to Elliott's influence, Prescott ranks within two points of MVP candidates Matt Ryan and Tom Brady in ESPN's Total QBR metric, despite being at least eight years younger than either of them.

Notice how I haven't even touched on Elliott's status as the NFL rushing leader. I don't plan to make that part of my MVP case. Yardage totals often tell you more about a player's usage rates than his effectiveness.

But boy, has Elliott been effective, and not just because of his stellar offensive line.

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Compare Elliott's campaign to DeMarco Murray's in 2014. By rushing yardage, their production appears to be similar.

But yardage only tells part of the story. The Cowboys' running game under Elliott earned 146 first downs and scored 24 touchdowns, with help from Prescott's occasional scrambles. The vaunted 2014 rushing attack under Murray picked up 113 first downs and 16 touchdowns on a similar number of carries.

For this reason, Pro Football Reference's expected-points model favors the 2016 running game over its 2014 counterpart. The running game in 2016 added 33 expected points to the scoring margin over the course of the season, the model says. In 2014, the Cowboys actually lost 18 expected points in the running game, compared to league-wide scoring baselines.

In other words, both seasons' rushing attacks picked up tons of yards. Elliott's ground game moved the chains and scored points.

Elliott didn't get much help from his backups, either, raising the question of whether the offense would have been anywhere near as effective if the starting running back had missed a significant portion of the season due to injury. (Morris, McFadden and Lance Dunbar each averaged no more than 3.6 yards per carry. Elliott averaged 5.1, despite much higher usage.)

The Cowboys gave us a clue they feel the same way about their MVP on Sunday, when they let Prescott play a few drives, but didn't even let Elliott see the field for fear of injury to their key cog in this offensive machine.

When you factor in Elliott's excellence running the ball, his influence on the passing game and the favorable situations the Elliott-led offense produced for the Cowboys defense, Elliott deserves to be recognized as the league's MVP.

So who is the more valuable Cowboy? Share your thoughts