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Ezekiel Elliott's final snap with Cowboys inexplicably came at center
Ezekiel Elliott Geoff Burke-USA TODAY Sports

Ezekiel Elliott's last snap with Dallas Cowboys inexplicably came at center

The Ezekiel Elliott Era of Dallas Cowboys football is over and it ended on a poor note.

That's not to diminish his career impact in Dallas, but Elliott's final play with the Cowboys will go down as perhaps one of the worst end-of-game calls of all time and the veteran back was right in the middle of it. 

Literally.

If that play -- Elliott immediately being bowled over to give Dak Prescott the time to throw a five-yard route down seven points with one second remaining -- doesn't encapsulate the Cowboys since the late 1990s, nothing will.

It's just been a whole much of missed opportunities and lowered expectations.

The franchise's prolonged sogginess has not all been Elliott's fault, of course. He came into the league like gangbusters and was a rookie of the year as well as MVP candidate in 2016 after rushing 322 times for 1,631 yards and 15 touchdowns, averaging 108.7 yards per game. Including that season, he put up four 1,000-plus yard seasons and notched double digit touchdowns four time.

The problem for Dallas and Elliott is that his rookie campaign was by far and away his best NFL season. While he recorded some subsequent nice campaigns along the way, his physical nature as a runner as well as his inability to stay healthy made it feel like the Cowboys never quite got all they could out of the two-time Pro Bowler.

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