LLANO, Texas – There’s a spirit of denial in Cowboy Country, a feeling that the six-game suspension of Ezekiel Elliott is not a fatal blow to the team’s Super Bowl hopes. Zeke’s attorneys are appealing, seeking arbitration. Perhaps the sentence will be reduced to four games.

The lawyers cite the same evidence that deterred the Columbus, Ohio, district attorney from seeking indictment: Tiffany Thompson fabricated a story that her boyfriend assaulted her in a parked car. She talked a friend into lying for her.

Once she’s caught in one lie, all her testimony loses some credibility.  The DA felt a conviction would be difficult, especially in Buckeyeland, where Elliott remains beloved for leading Ohio’s most popular sports team to a national championship.

Zeke is playing the race card, claiming Thompson told him on July 22, 2016: “You are a black male athlete; I am a white girl. They are not going to believe you.”

But this is more than he said/she said. Lips lie but bruises do not. The NFL has shown graphic time-stamped photographic evidence that Thompson was battered by someone on three occasions in a five-day span, and no one has fingered a suspect other than Elliott.

A DA whose re-election depends on his conviction rate – and whether Buckeye fans like him – runs away from a case like this.   But there is no escaping the long arm of Roger Goodell.

Cowboy fans know that. But they point to the New England Patriots thriving for a month without Tom Brady, the all-time great quarterback who surely is more valuable than Elliott, league-leading rusher in 2016.

A few games off will give Zeke fresh legs for the second half of the season and leave him strong for the playoffs. That’s what they’re hoping. I say they’re kidding themselves.

The dropoff from Elliott to backup Darren McFadden is not like Brady to Garoppolo.  McFadden is about to turn 30 – twilight for running backs, especially brittle ones. He missed most of last season when he broke his wrist trying to snatch his cellphone as it was plunging to the ground.

When healthy, McFadden is rather average, and you can’t be thrilled with the potential of his backup, Alfred Morris, who averaged 3.5 yards per carry last season and gained 243 yards behind the legendary Dallas offensive line.

And by the way, that O-line may take a step back. It lost a fine left guard, Ron Leary, to free agency. His successor, Jonathan Cooper, is with his fourth pro football team in three years. No one is more deserving of being called a journeyman.

In the free agency market the Cowboys also lost their two starting cornerbacks, Mo Claiborne and Brandon Carr, and two of their top three safeties, the physical tone-setters Barry Church and J.J. Wilcox.

Joining Elliott on the rap sheet: Damien Wilson, a starting outside linebacker in 2016, arrested July 4 after witnesses said he backed his pickup into the car of a woman and flashed his rifle at her companion. Wilson could miss the season’s beginning, along with cornerback Nolan Carroll, charged with drunk driving after police said he was on the wrong side of the road.

Also: The team’s best pass rusher, David Irving, has been suspended for the first four games because of a failed drug test.

Dallas is a likely underdog in its first three games: home against the New York Giants, then on the road to Denver and Arizona.

At 0-3 the Cowboys would be in a deep hole. They should handle the LA Lambs easily enough, but a home loss to Green Bay on Oct. 8 would put them 1-4 entering their bye.

They match up very weakly against the Packers, who beat them in the divisional playoffs last season. Aaron Rodgers incinerated a secondary that was stronger then than now.

As for the Dallas passing game, it will be so-so without the defenses loading the box to stop Elliott, whose blitz protection was a critical element of fellow rookie Dak Prescott’s success. Prescott completed 73 percent when Zeke was on the field, 60% when he was not.

The Cowboys’ 2017 schedule is more daunting than last year’s. Even when Elliott returns from exile, home games against Kansas City (Nov. 5) and Seattle (Dec. 24) will be challenging. And, more so, road meetings with NFC champion Atlanta (Nov. 12), the Giants (Dec. 10) and Oakland (Dec. 17).

And though the Cowboys should be favored against intradivision rivals Philadelphia and Washington, a sweep of those four games would defy the laws of probability. Unless Elliott’s suspension is reduced, the ‘Boys will have to be lucky to finish above .500 and make the playoffs.

In the shadow of the Tiffany Thompson case is last month’s disturbing incident at the Uptown Dallas Clutch sports bar. Someone got his nose crushed and was rushed by ambulance to a nearby hospital. Tweets went out that Zeke Elliott threw the punch.

But when police canvassed the bar, everyone clammed up as if Zeke’s last name is Gambino.

Zeke has a way of sliding by police, whether they’re in Columbus or Dallas. It did not go unnoticed that during a St. Patrick’s Day parade, Elliott lifted a woman’s top to expose a breast and cop a feel. The crowd booed. Soon the video was on the internet.

Cowboys’ fans are crying that Goodell is making an unfair example of their team, that other NFL players have gotten by much lighter for violence against women. Greg Hardy and Josh Brown leap to mind.

But Goodell is right to toughen up on domestic violence even if he’s been soft as cotton in the past. It would be a mistake to ease off Elliott and lighten a sentence so that it will have no negative impact on the team.

It’s obvious Elliott has a cavalier attitude about assault, and an example should be set. Especially with a team that has a tradition of forgiving, if not condoning, criminal activity.

Unless Goodell backs off in the face of Jerry Jones, the most influential of NFL owners, the Cowboys’ season probably will collapse early and will not recover. Which is how it should be.