NEW YORK -- New York Yankees outfielder Giancarlo Stanton will head to the team's minor league complex in Tampa, Florida, this week for batting practice, among the final steps before returning for the final weeks of an injury-wrecked season.

"I feel like he's really starting to build some momentum and doing pretty well," Yankees manager Aaron Boone said before Wednesday's homestand finale against Texas. "He'll start getting regular at-bats this weekend and, hopefully, really starting to ramp him up."

The 29-year-old slugger has been limited to nine games with the Yankees this season. He strained his left biceps March 31 in his third game, strained a shoulder and calf during his rehabilitation and did not return until June 18. Just a week later, he strained the posterior cruciate ligament in his right knee during an awkward headfirst slide into third base.

Stanton is hitting .290 with one home run and seven RBIs. He took batting practice Tuesday against reliever Dellin Betances, who hopes to return this month from a lat injury that has sidelined him since spring training.

Betances and right-hander Luis Severino were scheduled to pitch at Double-A Trenton on Friday rather than for Triple-A Scranton/Wilkes-Barre. The RailRiders are at Durham, North Carolina, which could have rain related to Hurricane Dorian. Severino, also out with a lat injury, pitched one inning for Scranton on Sunday in his season debut.

Left-hander CC Sabathia, on the injured list for the fourth time in his final season, tested his chronically painful right knee by playing catch for the second consecutive day.

Left-hander Jordan Montgomery allowed two runs and five hits over three innings for Trenton on Wednesday in his third appearance since Tommy John surgery on June 7 last year. He struck out five and walked none.

Boone said 20-year-old right-hander Deivi Garcia will remain at Scranton for the rest of the International League playoffs. Garcia is 1-3 with a 5.40 ERA in six starts and five relief appearances since his promotion to the RailRiders in July, striking out 45 and walking 20 in 40 innings.

"I think he's still kind of finding his way at that level," Boone said. "He's a very young guy and still developing in a lot of ways."

Infielder Gio Urshela, who hurt his right groin Aug. 28, ran the bases and could be activated when eligible Sunday at Boston.

Third baseman Miguel Andujar, recovering from season-ending surgery May 20 to repair a torn labrum in his right shoulder, plans to start throwing next week and expects to be ready for spring training.

"It's stronger now. It definitely feels better than it did before," Andujar said through an interpreter. "I'm very happy with the work that they did. It's showing progression."

LOS ANGELES -- The first pitch Gavin Lux ever saw in the major leagues, a 93 mph fastball tailing low and away, he lined into shallow center field for a base hit. When he reached first base, the Los Angeles Dodgers broadcast panned to his mother, Heather, and his father, Tom, who had flown in from Kenosha, Wisconsin, to take in their son's debut on Labor Day. Tom, outfitted in a blue Dodgers T-shirt and cap, pumped both fists into the air, clapped his hands together a few times and turned increasingly more red through the process. His eyes began to swell. Tears started to become visible. The video made its way to Lux after the game.

"I thought he was the tough guy," Lux said behind a smile. "I thought he was gonna be the one to not do that."

Lux is here to stay now, through the month of September and potentially deep into October. He is the fifth highly rated prospect to play for the Dodgers in their dominant 2019 season, after Alex Verdugo, Will Smith, Tony Gonsolin and Dustin May. His ascent is the most unlikely, his immediate future the most enthralling.

Lux was on track to become the everyday second baseman by 2020, but the Dodgers could turn to him now, despite fielding the National League's greatest and deepest offense, to help capture the franchise's first World Series title in 31 years. It was a possibility dismissed by club officials as recently as four weeks ago.

"He earned his way here," Dodgers manager Dave Roberts said, "and he knocked the door down."

Lux, 21, overhauled his hitting mechanics in the summer of 2017 and overcame a mild case of the yips in the spring of 2019. He shot up the prospect rankings last year but attained mythical status after a recent promotion to Triple-A, tearing up the Pacific Coast League like few ever have. Lux batted .392/.478/.719 in the 232 plate appearances that preceded his major league call-up. He recorded 18 extra-base hits through his first 15 games and hit safely in 27 of his first 28.

Matt Beaty was drafted a year earlier and always played a level higher, but he kept hearing about Lux. When Beaty was sent back to Triple-A on July 10, he was curious to see him up close. Beaty spent three days with the team in Memphis, Tennessee, and saw Lux take 16 at-bats. He saw him line pitches all over the outfield and saw him launch a home run deep down the line on a humid night when balls weren't carrying. Seven of those at-bats ended in hits.

"He was locked in," Beaty said. "I've never seen a hitter that hot."

Lux will tell you it was all the result of "just going out there and being myself," which isn't fluff. The success of these past two years, which included a .336 batting average across four minor league levels, have been the culmination of Lux growing comfortable with new mechanics.

The Dodgers drafted Lux 20th overall out of high school in the summer of 2016 and in some ways remade him in the summer of 2017. Lux began that season in the Midwest League and didn't record his first extra-base hit until his 22nd game. Robert Van Scoyoc -- then a hitting consultant, now a hitting coach at the major league level -- flew in to help.

"It's a pretty difficult time of year to make changes," Van Scoyoc said, "but he was struggling to a degree that it was necessary."

The Dodgers reworked everything, from his hands to his swing to the way he sets up and the way he loads. They wanted Lux to have a strong foundation with his lower half and keep his bat through the strike zone as long as possible, with more loft in his finish. The changes would ideally give Lux better plate coverage and allow him to elevate pitches more easily, but implementing them became a struggle.

Lux finished that season with a .693 OPS, then spent the entire winter working to make the changes feel natural. The 2018 season began in the Cal League, and Lux recorded only nine hits through his first 43 at-bats. Most players, particularly young ones, would have reverted to their old ways.

"Luxy just kept with the process, trusted everything that he did over the offseason, and from that point on, he hasn't looked back," Dodgers assistant general manager Brandon Gomes said. "He's been one of [the best], if not the best, hitters in the minor leagues the last few years."

Gomes, who previously served as the team's director of player development, considers Lux an "ultimate professional." He raved about his mental toughness, his attention to detail, his desire to become great and his openness to new instruction. He said his makeup is "as good as it possibly can get."

For those reasons, Gomes said, he hardly worried when Lux seemingly forgot how to throw a baseball during spring training in Arizona.

Beaty, who spent a lot of that time as Lux's first baseman, knew there was a problem when Lux six-hopped a throw off a routine grounder at Camelback Ranch. Beaty exuded optimism. "Hey," he told Lux, "we got the out." But Lux wasn't easy to console. It was his first big league camp, before the most important season of his professional career, and he had the yips. It seeped into his mind and wouldn't leave.

The Dodgers encouraged Lux to set his feet before throwing and let the baseball go without fear. One day, in the back fields of the Dodgers' spring training complex, Jose Vizcaino, a major league infielder for 18 seasons, asked about his grip. Lux grabbed a baseball from his glove and placed his index finger and middle finger on the outer edges of it. Vizcaino, now a special assistant with the Dodgers, couldn't believe it. He advised him to keep his fingers close, the way most pitchers would throw a fastball, and saw the yips go away shortly thereafter.

"And look at the season that he's had," Vizcaino said. "If he was somebody else, who's not mentally strong, he wouldn't have the season that he's had."

Lux is still relatively new to second base, but evaluators believe it's his best position in part because the throw is shorter. Scouts now see Lux as an average-to-slightly-above-average defender. His bat, however, is elite at any level.

Lux's second-inning hit Monday was followed by a third-inning double in the right-center-field gap, which capped a six-pitch at-bat. His next three plate appearances ended in a fly ball to the warning track, a grounder to the right side and a popup to the infield, but they all lasted six pitches.

"That's who he is," May said. "If he's not hitting the first pitch, he's definitely going to take his time in the AB."

Lux jumped from eighth to first in the batting order Tuesday, a 1-for-4 showing in a 5-3 victory over the Colorado Rockies. He batted there only because Joc Pederson took the night off, and he is consistently in the lineup largely because Max Muncy is nursing a wrist injury.

The Dodgers have won 91 of their 141 games and can clinch a division title as early as Saturday, 22 days before the final day of the regular season -- but they still have a lot of loose ends.

Cody Bellinger is suddenly playing center field and A.J. Pollock is transitioning to left. Julio Urias is back from suspension and getting stretched out, joining May, Gonsolin and the recovering Rich Hill as options for the fourth spot in the rotation. Kenley Jansen is and isn't the closer, with Kenta Maeda suddenly an option to pitch in high-leverage situations, including the ninth inning. Verdugo will be back next week, but suddenly he has to earn his place in the lineup again.

And then there's Lux, who might blow this whole thing up.

"You're trying to find the best 12 to 13 position players to formulate your roster," Roberts said when asked about the possibility of Lux earning his way onto the roster, and perhaps becoming the starting second baseman, in the postseason. "To say that's impossible, that's not the case."

BATAVIA, Ohio — Promoter Carl Short recently announced that the 39th edition of the Dirt Track World Championship Oct. 18-19  at Portsmouth Raceway Park will return to a time trial format for super late models.

Since 2015, a double-heat race format, with a passing-points system, has transferred drivers into the main event.

This year, Friday night will include time trials and a single set of 15-lap heat races with a six-car inversion. Competitors will earn points based on time trials and heat race finishing results. The points accumulated by a specific driver will be added together to create Saturday’s B Main and feature lineups.

Saturday’s on-track action for the Lucas Oil Late Model Dirt Series will include B Mains, followed by a non-qualifier race, where the winner has the choice of keeping their $3,000 winnings, or forfeit their earnings to start tail of the main event.

The 100-lap Dirt Track World Championship finale will cap off the weekend.

EL SEGUNDO, Calif. -- Forward Adrian Kempe has agreed to a three-year, $6 million deal to stay with the Los Angeles Kings.

The Kings announced the deal Wednesday with Kempe, a restricted free agent who turns 23 next week.

Kempe had 12 goals and 16 assists in 81 games last season for the Kings, the NHL's second-lowest-scoring team with just 199 goals.

The Swedish two-way center scored 37 points during the 2017-18 season, his first full NHL campaign. The Kings expect Kempe to increase his offensive productivity under new coach Todd McLellan, team President Luc Robitaille said.

"He's played a certain role with our organization, and I think this year he sensed that he's got probably a little more of an offensive role he's going to have to fulfill," Robitaille said. "That's going to really give him a chance to create and get more chances. Usually goals come with chances. He's been doing really good at checking and so forth, and we're looking for him to help on the other side, too."

Kempe has been playing center for most of his short NHL career, but has the versatility to move to a wing in the future. He has won just 41% of his career faceoffs.

Kempe was the Kings' final unsigned free agent. Los Angeles opens training camp next week.

There are no flashy shops, no giant malls and not much to do around the Mexican national team's hotel in Morristown, N.J. -- located 35 miles from the bright lights of Manhattan. And that's just how Gerardo "Tata" Martino probably wants it ahead of Mexico's friendly against the United States at MetLife Stadium on Friday.

The setting reflects the low-key outlook of the national team under Martino. Following July's Gold Cup final win over the U.S. in Chicago, Martino has given only one news conference, in San Antonio -- where El Tri faces Argentina on Sept. 10 -- while none of the players are scheduled to speak to the media before Friday's game.

It certainly hasn't been the usual build-up to the rivalry game, but just 61 days since the Gold Cup final, Mexico will once again take on the Stars and Stripes. This time around, Martino and Mexico boast a strengthened squad, with the return of key Europe-based players.

Here's a look at what to watch for on Friday and this international break as a whole with El Tri:

Hector Herrera is back

It's hard to over-exaggerate how important this is. There had been rumors that Herrera was still upset about the fallout from a pre-World Cup party which garnered international headlines. And those rumors were only been intensified by his no-show for first the March friendlies and then the Gold Cup.

But Herrera is back, now an Atletico Madrid player, and should prove a crucial link between the older generation of players in the Mexico set-up and the up-and-coming ones in the squad.

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Herrera is likely to be the key figure in Martino's midfield in the build-up to Qatar 2022. The Rosarito native checks all the boxes the manager is looking for in his position, combining an ability to cover ground with quality in possession and a high footballing IQ. And with Edson Alvarez adapting nicely to the holding midfield role and dropping back between the center-backs when building from the back, Herrera should be free to play in the more advanced role on the right of midfield in a 4-3-3 that he often did under Juan Carlos Osorio.

The only downside is that Herrera hasn't been featuring for Atleti, although over the course of the season he'll get minutes and perhaps the lower workload will actually be beneficial for Mexico.

Europe-based players in form

The likes of Diego Reyes, Guillermo Ochoa, Miguel Layun, Carlos Salcedo, Marco Fabian and Uriel Antuna may have all ditched Europe for either MLS or Liga MX during 2019, but the good news for El Tri is that for the players that have remained in Europe, things are looking up.

Hirving Lozano scored in his Napoli debut last weekend in the 4-3 loss to Juventus; Erick Gutierrez is now an important figure at PSV Eindhoven; Alvarez has made a fine start to life at Ajax, while Nestor Araujo (Celta Vigo), Jesus "Tecatito" Corona (Porto) and Andres Guardado (Real Betis) are also regulars in their teams.

El Tri's record goalscorer Javier "Chicharito" Hernandez is back in camp after becoming a father this summer and will be on a high after his move to Sevilla from West Ham United over the weekend.

But perhaps the most in-form player Mexico has right now is Raul Jimenez, who despite only a short break after the Gold Cup, has started the season with eight goals for Wolves in the month of August alone.

Tecatito and his possible new role

Gold Cup starting right-back Luis "Chaka" Rodriguez and the experienced Layun may have unexpected competition for the position from Tecatito Corona.

The Porto player -- considered predominantly a winger throughout most of his career -- has played the last three games in the Portuguese first division at right-back and it's gone relatively well.

Porto coach Sergio Conceicao fields Danilo Pereira in a holding role similar to what Alvarez does for Mexico, allowing the full-backs to push up and Corona to impact the game in the opposition half from a deeper position. And Martino also really likes his full-backs to play high.

Corona -- who had a spat with Martino back in March -- recorded an assist last weekend and although there are obvious defensive deficiencies, these friendlies may be a good opportunity to experiment with him at that position.

Youngsters making a case

This is a much more mature squad than Mexico took to the Gold Cup, but there is still room for a few of the youngsters that impressed.

Cesar Montes (Monterrey), Alvarez (Ajax), Orbelin Pineda (Cruz Azul), Carlos Rodriguez (Monterrey), Roberto Alvarado (Cruz Azul), Antuna (LA Galaxy) and Alexis Vega (Chivas) are all left-overs from the Gold Cup and important components of the generational change in the Mexican national team, although it's difficult to see them all getting minutes.

All indicators point to the bulk of those youngsters being used for CONCACAF Nations League play in October and November, meaning this could be the last time we see some of the older players this year.

Predicted line-ups

It's difficult to know exactly how Martino will go given he's named a 31-player squad, but there are likely to be significant changes between the first game against the United States and the second against his former side Argentina.

And keeping in mind that Mexico just played the United States in an official game with a trophy at stake, it'd be no surprise if the stronger XI was reserved for the friendly against Argentina.

If Martino is set to field his strongest team, at present it would probably look something like (4-3-3): Ochoa; Layun, Salcedo, Hector Moreno, Jesus Gallardo; Alvarez, Herrera, Guardado; Lozano, Corona, Jimenez.

Alternatively, a second XI could be: Jonathan Orozco; Rodriguez, Araujo, Montes, Sanchez; Reyes, Dos Santos, Fabian; Alvarado, Antuna, Hernandez.

If there is one thing Martino has this international break, it is options.

The list of American soccer's Next Big Things extends back further than you might think, at least all the way to Steve Snow.

Uh, who?

Snow was the Parade Magazine High School Player of the Year in 1988. In suburban Chicago, he scored a goal in 49 consecutive high school games and earned a place on the 1989 U.S. Under-20 World Cup team. Snow scored five goals in seven qualification games and then another three more at the tournament in Saudi Arabia, where the U.S. came in fourth, still their best-ever U20 finish. After attending Indiana University for a year, he turned pro in 1990 and signed Belgian outfit Standard Liege.

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How good was Snow? Former USMNT midfielder Chris Henderson told MLSSoccer.com in 2014 that, "From 1985-1989, he was the best forward in the country. He was the best goalscorer I've ever played with." However, Snow soon struggled with injuries and had a falling out with U.S. Soccer at the 1992 Olympics. He was benched for the tournament-opening 2-1 loss to Italy, and told reporters after the game, "This team cannot play at all without me. This team wouldn't be here without me." He played and scored in both of the side's remaining group games, but never made another appearance for the full national team. After a couple years of professional indoor soccer, Snow was out of the sport completely by 1995.

This, of course, is a cycle that American soccer fans are by now all too familiar with. There's a savior identified at a young age. Then there's a brief period of initial senior-level excitement. Then the impossible expectations are never met, for one reason or another. And then the cycle starts over again, and the U.S. men's national team remains in the same spot it's been in for the last 30 years: somewhere between, say, the 15th and 40th best team in the world.

John O'Brien, Freddy Adu, Juan Agudelo, Bobby Convey, Santino Quaranta, Julian Green, etc. -- there's a starting XI and a full bench worth of prospects who failed to live up to the hype. But the reality is that most youth prospects globally don't become high-level professional players, and a microscopic sliver of them go on to become what one might consider "world class". Case and point, in 2007, World Soccer magazine published a list of the 50 most exciting teenagers on the planet. On the cover were Giovani dos Santos, who's currently playing in Liga MX with Club America, Alexandre Pato, who's back in Brazil with Sao Paulo after two years in China, and Anderson, who once played for Man United but now plays for Adana Demirspor, a club in the Turkish second division.

"Everyone has their own progress," USMNT manager Gregg Berhalter told the media on Monday, ahead of the team's upcoming friendlies against Mexico and Uruguay. "The speed in which they continue to progress is unpredictable."

The goal for any national soccer federation is to simply create more top-level talent, and the way to do that isn't to hope for one player to appear and suddenly change a country's fortunes. Rather, it's to build an environment where there isn't just one top prospect in a generation, but 10, so when seven of them don't pan out, you're still left with three more. In other words, the more raffle tickets you have, the better your chances of winning.

The U.S. still isn't close to reaching the kind of talent production seen in France or now England, but things have slowly started to change. Perhaps that's why there's an 18-year-old American starting for a team that made the Champions League semifinals last year, and it doesn't seem like that big of a deal.

--

Sergino Dest was born in Almere, Netherlands in 2000. He initially played for a local club before joining Dutch giants Ajax in 2012. After six seasons in what might be Europe's premier talent-development factory, Dest was promoted to the Amsterdam club's second team, Jong Ajax, last year. He made 17 appearances in the Dutch second division and then went on to star for the U.S. at this past summer's U20 World Cup. Come August, he was starting for Ajax, as they overcame Cypriot power APOEL, 2-0, in Champions League qualification playoff-round. And this week he earned his first USMNT call-up.

"For him, he got his opportunity, he seized his opportunity, and now he's a starter for Ajax, a semifinalist in the Champions League," Berhalter said. "That's an unbelievable story. You can never tell when it happens, who it's gonna happen to, but Sergino's in a good moment now, and we wanna capitalize on that."

Dest, whose mother is Dutch and whose father was an American serviceman stationed in the Netherlands, has all the outlines of a top-tier modern full-back. He's rangy enough to get up and down the sideline without throwing a team's defensive structure out of whack, but he's also comfortable coming infield and functioning from more traditional midfield positions -- whether it's progressing the ball up the field, maintaining possession, or play-making around the opponent's goal.

He's got the kind of slick, 360-degree range of movement that's rare among players who spend most of their minutes cramped up against the sideline. It's only a couple games, but the youngster completed 90 percent of his passes and won a higher percentage of 50-50 duels than any other full-back during UCL qualification. In the final match against APOEL, a 2-0 home win, he created two chances, in addition to completing a higher percentage of his passes and winning a higher percentage of duels than any other player on the field. Not bad for an 18-year-old.

Ajax were then drawn into a Champions League group with two other Americans: Chelsea's Christian Pulisic, and Lille's Timothy Weah. Another, Tyler Adams, will also participate in the competition with RB Leipzig. Not one of those players is old enough to buy a beer in the States yet, and they represent a growing trend within U.S. Soccer: there are more Americans playing in professional academies than ever before.

According to US Soccer, the 2017-through-2018 cycle of youth national team players featured around 50 international-based players called in for the U14 through U20 teams. For the 2018-19 cycle, that number jumped up to about 70.

"We have continued to expand our talent identification structure both domestically and abroad, with the goal of locating and developing the best players wherever they are," said Earnie Stewart, U.S. Soccer's sporting director. "The results of those efforts are reflected in the makeup of our youth national team rosters, and will ultimately benefit the senior team."

At the 2009 U20 World Cup, 10 of the U.S.'s 21 players were either playing college soccer at the time or were associated with American clubs below the MLS level. Only three guys on that roster were playing for European teams at the time. Fast forward 10 years, and every player on this past summer's team was either with an MLS side or a European club. In fact, more than half of that roster came from Europe. Thanks to globalized scouting networks at most top clubs and an increasing interest and investment in American players, just about every big club in Europe now has at least one American somewhere in its pipeline.

Stateside, every MLS club now has its own academy, and all but two of them (Minnesota and D.C. United) are free. One added side effect of MLS's continued expansion is the growth of affordable, high-level training in a sport that has tended to weed out lower-income, non-white kids due to high participation costs or lack of a nearby club. The U.S. remains humongous and 24 MLS clubs aren't close enough to cover it, but the current situation is better than the one where Clint Dempsey's parents had to completely rearrange their lives just so their son could get to and from practice.

On the most recent USMNT roster of 26 players, 10 spent time in an MLS academy and another 10 were at a European club before their 21st birthday. Tyler Adams, who isn't on the current roster due to injury but is expected to be one of the team's stars over the next decade, came up through the New York Red Bull academy and then signed with RB Leipzig when he was 19. Weston McKennie came up with FC Dallas and joined Schalke when he was 18. When healthy, both of them are already starters for two of the better clubs in the Bundesliga. While Christian Pulisic has shown enough to suggest that America's Next Big Thing might finally actually become The Big Thing, he's also going to be flanked by a collection of young talent that exists, in part, because of a developmental environment that never existed for a prior generation.

Whether that group actually includes Dest isn't a sure thing yet. Although he's represented the US at U17 and U20 levels, he is still eligible to play for the Netherlands. If he does end up representing the country in which he was born, that could end up being a big blow the USMNT. Long-term, though, the goal should be to finally get to the point where the future of a single player isn't so closely tied with the future fortunes of the team. The numbers aren't there yet, but they're moving in the right direction.

FRISCO, Texas -- Ezekiel Elliott admits it was important to him to be the highest-paid running back in the NFL.

"Because I believe I'm the best," the Dallas Cowboys star said Wednesday, not long after his first practice since signing a six-year, $90 million extension that includes $50 million guaranteed, according to sources.

Todd Gurley of the Los Angeles Rams had been the highest-paid running back with $45 million guaranteed and a $14.375 million average salary. Elliott, 24, was under contract through 2020 and was set to make $3.853 million in 2019 and $9.09 million on the fifth-year option in 2020, making his total compensation through 2026 more than $100 million.

The high of signing the deal was short-lived after Elliott went through his first workouts with his teammates in searing heat and humidity in preparation for Sunday's season opener against the New York Giants.

"The heat was a little rough today, but it's air conditioning in AT&T Stadium," Elliott joked. "So I mean, I'm just going to keep seeing how I feel the rest of this week."

Elliott spent most of his summer working out in Cabo San Lucas, Mexico, attempting to simulate football drills as much as he could with a strength coach, athletic trainer, other current players and Hall of Famer Marshall Faulk.

"He's in very good shape," Cowboys coach Jason Garrett said. "He looks good, but he hasn't practiced with pro football players, so we'll just see how he fits back in. But he's a quick study. He's a smart guy, got excellent football IQ. So we'll just see where he is and adjust accordingly as we go."

The Cowboys will have a roster exemption for Elliott this week, but the team would need to make a move on the 53-man roster for him to play. Elliott said comparing his return to the team now to his return from a six-game suspension in 2017 is different because he had a full offseason program, training camp and eight games of action before he accepted the league's punishment.

But he also said he could handle a large workload Sunday.

"I think I'm just going to approach it as a normal week. You still have to be fresh by Sunday," Elliott said. "It is a long season. So don't want to try to overdo it and risk injury."

The Cowboys will monitor Elliott this week and hope that he's honest with where he is physically. He returned to the final two games of the 2017 season and had 51 carries for 200 yards.

"You just try your best to gauge them and try to put the player, the team in the best position," Garrett said. "Obviously he was with us all throughout the offseason. He missed training camp. Really hasn't played in preseason games in the past, so there's a lot of different factors to weigh.

"The biggest thing you do, is you get him back in here and you get him back to work. You get feedback from him as to how he's doing. You watch him and you make your best judgment in how you want to use him going forward."

When Elliott went to bed Tuesday, he did not believe a deal would be done in time for him to practice Wednesday, but he had not yet thought about the possibility of missing regular-season games.

Elliott received a call that a deal was agreed upon around 7 a.m. ET.

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Not an hour later, he was at The Star, seeing his teammates for the first time since June.

"Guys are just excited to see him. It was less about, like, 'Oh, thank God you're here. Thank God you got your deal done,'" center Travis Frederick said. "It was, 'Man, I've missed you. I haven't seen you in a month.' It's just weird not having him around. ... It's like one of your brothers has shipped off to do a semester abroad and all of a sudden has come back. It's just a good, reuniting feeling."

Elliott said he felt support from teammates during his holdout, which helped keep him resolute.

"Calls, text ... I mean, one of my teammates told me don't come back without a deal," Elliott said. "I mean, just support like that from this group of guys meant everything. It definitely would have been harder if things were the opposite."

At the time of signing, Elliott was guaranteed $28 million. The final $22 million in guaranteed money comes in his 2021 and 2022 base salaries on the fifth day of each league year.

Since joining the Cowboys as the fourth overall pick in the 2016 draft, Elliott leads the NFL with 4,048 rushing yards -- despite missing eight games. Gurley is second with 3,441 yards. In 2018, Elliott joined Herschel Walker as the only Cowboys running backs to have more than 1,000 yards rushing and 500 yards receiving in the same season.

He is the fifth player since the NFL-AFL merger in 1970 to lead the league in rushing twice in his first three seasons. Cowboys Hall of Famer Emmitt Smith, the NFL's all-time leading rusher, also accomplished the feat in 1991 and 1992.

During the course of negotiations, owner and general manager Jerry Jones said teams did not need rushing champions to be successful and joked, 'Zeke who?' after rookie Tony Pollard had an impressive showing in the preseason.

"It's just negotiations. You've got to get through it," Elliott said. "We're good."

Elliott has not spoken with Jones since the deal came to fruition. The owner was in New York on Tuesday and Wednesday. They will likely talk soon, with an official news conference coming Thursday with Jones back in North Texas.

Elliott met his goal to be the highest-paid running back. Now the goal is to win the Super Bowl.

"I mean, I've just got to take it to the next level now," Elliott said. "That's what I'm trying to say."