Ezekiel Elliott And Other Football Folk Have Strong Takes On Christian McCaffrey Skipping Stanford’s Bowl

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For many college football players, a bowl game is the last chance in the season to play with your teammates, a reward for all of your hard work. For those with concrete plans to get drafted in the NFL, it’s a game with no competitive implications, one in which a serious injury could do catastrophic damage to your career earnings. Christian McCaffrey and Leonard Fournette are two of those players, and they decided to skip their bowl games — something that doesn’t sit well with Ezekiel Elliott.

That’s a hot take from someone who skipped an entire year of eligibility when his draft stock was at its highest, as his followers were eager to point out:


https://twitter.com/JessicaSaxena/status/810900125463810054

Zeke had his own response, however — and by the end of it, he seemed to have softened his tone:


Elliott’s point about one game versus one season makes sense, but he does come off as a bit of a hypocrite. Still, it’s encouraging that he allowed himself to listen to reason and change his mind. Other, older football guys are more set in their ways, and some of them dropped even hotter takes. Gotta love the classic invocations of “me first culture” and “what of the children?”

We feel a duty to include this incredible burn on McNabb as well:

As for the other side, we’ll cede this space to Donte’ Stallworth, whose personal story should convince you in a far gentler way than we can: