NFL Spin Zone
Fansided

Dallas Cowboys: Randy Gregory return can make defense scary

By Kevin Parvizi

facebooktwitterreddit

Even though Dallas Cowboys second-round rookie Randy Gregory didn’t record a single stat against the New York Giants woeful offensive line, the one-time top ten 2015 NFL Draft prospect clearly stamped his mark on the game in his NFL regular season debut. Gregory put pressure on Eli Manning almost at will, hitting him once before leaving the game with a high-ankle sprain.

ALSO ON SPIN ZONE: Where does Jason Witten rank among the best Tight Ends?

Since his absence, the Cowboys pass rush has still been fantastic, and Greg Hardy looked absolutely dominant in last week’s loss to the New England Patriots. Hardy isn’t the only talented defensive lineman on this Cowboys front, however, because Tyrone Crawford, Jeremy Mincey, and second-year Boise State product DeMarcus Lawrence are other players defenses must account for on every snap.

More from Dallas Cowboys

There’s little doubt that Hardy is the main impact player on this line, but I get the sense that Gregory is a game-changer in his own right. Lawrence and Mincey can certainly provide pressure off of the edge, but neither of them can match Gregory’s explosiveness or athletic ability. Again, what he did in his first game was incredible, and that sort of immediate impact had to have made Cowboys fans excited.

Well, it’s time to get excited about Gregory again, because the NFL Network’s Ian Rapoport reports that the former Nebraska star is set to return from his high-ankle sprain in Week 7 against the Giants. Although there’s no guarantee that Gregory will be ready, the Cowboys are on a bye week, thus making it the perfect opportunity to re-insert him into the starting lineup. Fellow rookie La’el Collins, new running back Christine Michael, and new starting QB Matt Cassel will be among the faces with changed roles after the bye, as the Cowboys know they have some ground to make up at 2-3.

In fact, the Giants have won every single game since both Tony Romo and Dez Bryant went down with injuries for the Cowboys, and every game means everything in the NFC East right now.

Based on what Gregory did in limited opportunities against the Giants in Week 1, Eli should be wary of the Cowboys rookie pass rusher when these two teams take the field in Week 7. Although “expected back” is much different from a report saying that Randy Gregory “will be back”, it’s hard to see them holding him out. This is an important rivalry game, because sweeping the Giants this season would give the Cowboys so much more leeway, and that’s something they desperately need after dropping three straight games without Dez and Romo.

But what’s more important for the Cowboys is how Gregory impacts this defense overall, because they could legitimately have a scary unit on their hands. I know they gave up 30 points to the New England Patriots on Sunday, but if Brandon Weeden weren’t so incompetent, that wouldn’t have been the case.

This Cowboys defense kept making stops, and getting Hardy in the lineup allowed this defense to wreak havoc. Gregory isn’t as good, but he’s even quicker, which means that the type of pressure they can put on opposing quarterbacks will be so quick that it could lead to more turnovers. The Cowboys have forced just three turnovers so far this season, so they desperately need to find ways to get that spark  going.

As expected, the Dallas Cowboys pass coverage has been weak, but it hasn’t been embarrassing, which can only be considered a positive for a defense that lost Orlando Scandrick and didn’t have a tailor-made replacement for him. Getting Gregory back will give the Cowboys arguably the NFL’s deepest pass rush, and I can’t think of a team off the top of my head with a four-man front that would be more capable of getting after the passer than Dallas’s group of Hardy, Gregory, Crawford, Mincey, and Lawrence.

It will be interesting to see how creative they get up front off of the bye week, and, as the Giants themselves showed us in the past, a dominant group of 4-3 defensive ends can cover up holes in the secondary. The Cowboys holes in the defensive backfield aren’t glaring enough to be insurmountable, so the addition of Gregory as a potential difference-making spark to an already-strong defensive line could put this defense into the “scary” realm.

Because if you can’t contain their pass rush, you could make costly mistakes, and that’s something the Cowboys will have to feed off of with Hardy and Gregory about to play together for the first time.

Next: Is Tony Romo the best UDFA in NFL History?

More from NFL Spin Zone

Home/Dallas Cowboys