Dowdle is on the verge of hitting a critical landmark that would truly establish himself as an RB1 ahead of free agency

Brock Hoffman, the Cowboys' right guard, will love it. Nobody talks more on the field than Hoffman. In hockey parlance, he is the Cowboys' enforcer. In football lingo, he plays to the echo of the whistle.

The expectation entering the season was that if Dowdle could stay healthy, he had the best opportunity to be the Cowboys’ leading rusher. That probably meant he would end up with something like 600 to 800 rushing yards while No. 2 running back Ezekiel Elliott was somewhere in the 400 t0 500 range.