Dallas Cowboys running back Ezekiel Elliott is not out of the woods just yet.
It was reported earlier that Elliott was given a preliminary injunction by a Texas judge that kept the Cowboys from serving a levied suspension on him by the NFL. The NFL, however, countered by appealing to Fifth Circuit court of appeal to lift the injunction.
The result of that appeal is yet to be known, but sources privy to the case have told Dan Graziano of ESPN that a ruling may come next week.
If a request of a stay is not granted by U.S. District Judge Amos Mazzant this week, the NFL believes, according to a league source, that it could hear a decision from the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals next week on its coming request for a stay of the preliminary injunction the Dallas court granted that blocked Elliott's suspension.
A decision in which the court sides with the NFL would mean that Elliott will have to start serving his suspension in Week 3 since Week 2 of the NFL’s schedule could be either still in play or has already lapsed by the time a new ruling is handed out.
Via Graziano, sources have said, that it’s not the only option for the 5th Circuit.
The source said the granting of the stay is one of three possible scenarios for 5th Circuit action in the Elliott case. Another is that the court declines to issue the stay but does agree to the league's request for an expedited hearing of its appeal. If that happens, the appeal could be heard in a matter of weeks, meaning that an NFL victory on appeal could result in Elliott being suspended for games later this season, possibly including any postseason games for which the Cowboys might qualify (or early 2018 games should they not play enough postseason games to fulfill it).
The final possibility, as the league sees it, is that the 5th Circuit denies the league's request for a stay and also denies the request for an expedited appeal. In that case, the appeal likely would take months and be decided in the 2018 offseason, when an NFL victory would mean Elliott would be suspended for the first six games of the 2018 season.
Elliott’s case has become trickier each passing week, and no one between his camp and the NFL is doing their image in the public eye any good. The more this issue gets prolonged, the more unnecessary attention it will bring to the Cowboys. As for the NFL, a bad light is also being cast on them by people who believe that Roger Goodell’s office is on a witch hunt akin to what they did to Tom Brady during the peak of Deflategate.
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