At some point this upcoming season, the Dallas Cowboys are going to have to rely on second-year defensive end Randy Gregory to provide some sort of a pass rush.
It won’t come in the first four games after the former second-round pick was suspended for violating the NFL’s substance abuse program.
But it is going to have to come at some point on the heels of Dallas deciding not to re-sign Greg Hardy and fellow defensive end DeMarcus Lawrence also suspended four games.
In this, Cowboys head coach Jason Garrett attempted to light a fire under his embattled young defender in recent comments to the media.
“Just in everything he (Gregory) does — how he handles himself in meetings, in the walk-through, in the offseason program, on the practice field,” Garrett said, via the Star-Telegram. “Again, it’s a work in progress. He has gotten better. But he has a long way to go. A lot of guys have a long way to go.”
Garrett isn’t simply focusing on Gregory’s lack of maturity off the field, something that forced him to drop to the second round in the 2015 NFL Draft after a failed drug test during the combine.
Instead, he’s going at the 23-year-old former Nebraska standout from every possible angle. There’s no question that the Cowboys head coach is attempting to get into his player’s head. Whether that works is anyone’s guess.
What we do know here is that the Cowboys are especially thin at defensive end with both Gregory and Lawrence suspended for the first four games.
The team didn’t add a pass rusher with either of its first two picks in last month’s draft, and is going to be sorely lacking from this standpoint early on.
How Gregory rebounds from the suspension and the way he holds himself throughout the summer is going to be a huge key for the Cowboys ability to contend in 2016.
It might sound like relying on someone of Gregory’s ilk is a risk, but that’s the chance Dallas took when it exhausted a second rounder on the youngster last year.
Gregory recorded 11 tackles and zero sacks in limited playing time as a rookie.