The Cowboys unleashed a pass rusher they didn’t know they had against the Buccaneers

There will always be injuries in football, it’s just the nature of the game. And it will always suck to be one of those players who misses time because of an injury.

On the other hand, many times those same injuries provide opportunities for other players who maybe just need a chance to show the coaching staff what they can do. Ask yourself this: Would we have known how much better Dee Ford has been since his rookie year had Justin Houston’s injury not provided him the opportunity to start the first 10 weeks of this season?

Before you answer, it’s worth noting that Ford has started three of the four games he’s played in since Houston returned to the lineup, and he hasn’t notched a single sack in that same time frame. That’s after he started the season off scorching hot with 10 sacks in the first 10 weeks.

I bring this up because injuries also provided Cowboys defensive tackle David Irving with the opportunity to ball TF out against my beloved Tampa Bay Buccaneers on Sunday Night Football last week.

Coming into the game, Dallas already knew they would be without the services of both starting defensive end DeMarcus Lawrence and backup defensive tackle Cedric Thornton due to injuries. With Irving playing mostly inside this season, the fact that Thornton was out made it pretty likely that his role would expand against the Bucs for at least one game.

You see even after earning my Hoss of the Week award in Week 6, Irving had somehow continued to be relegated to spot duty as a backup. On the broadcast, one of the announcers said Irving was playing “around 40 percent” of the snaps on defense coming into that game. From my memory, that number sounds about right. It has been that lack of playing time that has contributed to Irving’s inconsistency on the field. But then the inconsistency on the field could also justify the lack of increased playing time.

In addition to the lack of playing time, what would’ve made it almost impossible to predict that Irving would have the kind of fourth quarter that he had against Tampa Bay is the fact that, while Thornton’s absence did indeed moderately increase Irving’s playing time inside early in the game, ultimately it was Lawrence’s absence that contributed way more to Irving having the opportunity to show what he could do as an edge guy. If Lawrence was healthy, more than likely we don’t get to see Irving out there embarrassing fools at left defensive end.

And that would’ve been a damn shame.

With Lawrence out and starting left defensive end Tyrone Crawford apparently injuring himself trying to tackle Doug Martin on the second play of the third quarter, that pretty much forced Dallas to insert Irving into the defensive end rotation.

And that’s when shit got real.

It took a little while for Irving to get going out on the edge, but once he got warmed up ... hot damn he was on fire!

I had quietly wondered for a while why the Cowboys didn’t use Irving more at defensive end this season, especially after the Randy Gregory suspension. At the same time I know that Cowboys defensive coordinator Rod Marinelli, my old defensive line coach, definitely knows what the hell he is doing when it comes to defensive lineman. I figured there was a good reason that just wasn’t apparent to people on the outside looking in.

The one thing that was obvious is that after the Cowboys moved Tyrone Crawford back to defensive end from three-technique this year, they had quite a few bodies at defensive end. With Lawrence, Ben Mayowa, and Jack Crawford all in the defensive end rotation, it likely would’ve been hard to rotate Irving in there, especially if you weren’t sure what you were going to get out of him.

Also having a guy like Leon Lett as Dallas’ defensive tackles coach was probably good for Irving in terms of working on his technique.

So yeah, I mean, I can talk myself into understanding why the Cowboys would have a somewhat-undersized Irving primarily lining up inside, but the fact that the guy is every bit of 6’7 and a svelte 270 pounds or so* with ridiculously long arms and looks a lot like what a Create-A-Player defensive end would look like on Madden, I personally would’ve still preferred to have seen what he could do out wide prior to this weekend.

*For some reason I’ve seen some reports online that David Irving weighs 230 pounds, but I’m calling bullshit on that. A guy that tall would look like Manute Bol if he only weighed 230 pounds.

I say all that because allowing Irving to line up at defensive end for an extended period of time on Sunday night, even if it was only because the numbers necessitated it, was probably a lot like unhooking a thoroughbred from a plow.

Yeah, Irving has had some success pass rushing inside, but getting him out wide where he could really showcase his athleticism without having to worry so much about being double teamed by two 300-pounders had all the makings of a being a match made in heaven.

From watching the film, it’s clear that Bucs right tackle Gosder Cherilus, himself a backup pressed into action because of an injury, had no idea what was about to hit him.

It’s worth pointing out that Cherilus wasn’t exactly some slaw against Cowboys starting left defensive end Tyrone Crawford for much of the game. And by the way, Crawford did in fact come back in the third quarter and Jack Crawford made an appearance at left defensive end during the period that Tyrone Crawford was out in the third quarter as well.

I didn’t see either one of those guys putting clown shoes on Cherilus the way Irving did. It was also very curious that Irving ended up playing every single rep of the fourth quarter at left defensive end.

I’m not sure if that was due to injury or if the Cowboys were just riding the hot hand, but whatever the reasoning, all of the stars had aligned for Irving and he played like he was born for this.

On the first play of Tampa Bay’s first possession of the fourth quarter, after the Cowboys had driven down and kicked a field goal to tie the game at 20, Irving got right to making Cherilus’ life miserable.

Irving got off the ball as if he was going with a speed rush, but he quickly hit the breaks after a couple of steps up field and hit Cherilus with what looks for the world to have been an old school “flipper” with his forearm. I can’t actually ever remember seeing someone use a “flipper” in the NFL as a pass rush in like the last 25 years, but damn if it wasn’t effective. Cherilus did his best impression of a crash-test dummy and went flying onto his side.

Irving comes completely free as Cherilus hits the turf, but then he sees that the defensive tackle inside of him, Maliek Collins, is upfield in the B gap blocking Irving’s direct path to the quarterback. Quick as a cat, he was able to to slip behind Collins and then explode upfield in the A gap to take down Bucs second-year quarterback Jameis Winston for a loss of 6 yards.

Dude legit got a sack off throwing a “flipper.” Unreal!

It turns out after watching the all-22 that it was more like half sack as Mayowa got to Winston at about the same time, but what Irving did to Cherilus just to get to Winston was still impressive as hell.

Turns out he was just getting started.

Two plays later with Tampa facing a third-and-14 from their own 21-yard line, the Bucs actually tried to help Cherilus out by sending running back Charles Sims over that way to chip on Irving. He saw Sims coming and smartly decided to hit Cherilus with a long arm rather than try a speed rush, which would have made it easier for Sims to blast him.

Thing is, with Irving having those ridiculously long arms, calling what he did to Cherilus a long arm probably undersells it a bit.

Irving stayed skinny as he pushed Cherilus back with his inside arm and Sims ended up basically whiffing on his chip attempt, so he ended up being no help at all. With Sims out of the way and Cherilus on skates, Irving slipped inside of Cherilus and was able to extend right arm just enough that his hand hit Winston’s elbow as Winston was trying to follow through on a throw.

The ball ended up sailing over its intended target and into the hands of Dallas safety Jeff Heath who returned the interception all the way back to the Buccaneers’ 22-yard line.

Safe to say that at that point Irving was feeling pretty comfortable and confident at defensive end. Now that the beast had been unleashed, he wasn’t about to allow anyone to put it back in a cage.

He continued his strong play on Tampa’s next drive.

The Cowboys decided to go with a zone blitz on second-and-2. The defensive tackle inside of Irving, Terrell McClain, lined up in the B gap and did what we used to call a “hot” looping outside to the C gap for contain.

Dallas linebacker Sean Lee covered McClain’s rush lane by blitzing the B gap. That left Irving to loop inside behind McClain to the A gap to even up the pass-rush lanes.

Tampa should have been in pretty good shape to block up all three guys because they slid their center, Joe Hawley, to the side of the blitz. While that sounds good in theory, the problem is that it meant Hawley would have to block Irving one on one in space after Irving already had a full head of steam.

Hawley seemed to expect Irving to go through the A gap to his side and appeared to set his feet in preparation of blocking him that way. The problem came when Irving decided to adjust and rush to the opposite side A gap.

He ended up side stepping Hawley while simultaneously knocking the center’s hands off of him. Hawley got just enough contact so that Irving was a little off balance, but another one of the benefits of having crazy long arms is that it’s easy to stick your hand on the ground to help you stay upright, which he did.

Irving barely even broke stride after beating Hawley as he made a beeline for Winston. He wasn’t quite able to get to Winston before he threw the ball, but he was able stretch his arms out wide and knock the pass down to force a third-and-2. That was a pressure and a pass breakup on the same damn play.

On the next drive, Irving showed he wasn’t just a pass rusher as he was able to push Cherilus deep into the backfield and into fullback Alan Cross to force running back Doug Martin to cut back into a tackle for a loss by Mayowa.

No, Irving didn’t “make” the play, but if you watch the film it’s plain to see that he did “make” that play.

On the following Bucs drive on offense with less than three minutes to go in the game and the Cowboys holding onto a 26-20 lead, Irving went right back to work on the very first play.

I don’t know if Irving was listening to some old Ludacris before the game or something, but he seemed intent on absolutely manhandling Cherilus out his way all night long. Once again Irving’s weapon of choice was a long arm. If you can imagine two knights jousting, Cherilus would be the dude who gets caught right in the chest and goes flying off the horse. So clean was the win that Martin, who had been looking to chip on Irving, couldn’t even lay a finger on him.

Irving ran right through Cherilus and then pounced on Winston to pick up his second sack of the game for a loss of 8 yards.

On the very next play I guess Cherilus was fed up or something, because he came off the ball and was very aggressive in pushing his hands forcefully into Irving’s facemask. While he somehow got away with the blatantly illegal contact to the head, the problem was Cherilus seemed to have forgotten that Irving’s arms were longer than his.

So while he got full extension into Irving’s facemask, Irving got full extension with his inside hand into Cherilus’ chest and was able to create enough distance to run right around him.

Irving wasn’t quite able to get to Winston that time, but he was able to force Winston into hurrying the throw, which dove into the turf several feet front of its intended target, tight end Cameron Brate.

And that, ladies and gentleman, was the last we saw of Cherilus on the night. In less than a half at defensive end, Irving had forced him from the game in shame.

Truth be told, Cherilus’ replacement, rookie undrafted free agent Leonard Wester, didn’t fare much better.

The Bucs ended up punting on that drive, but with a smart use of their timeouts they were still able to get the ball back one last time with 1:36 left in the game, still down six points.

With 39 seconds left the Bucs had to try to convert a third-and-12 from their own 20-yard line. Unsurprisingly, they decided to try to make sure that Irving couldn’t cause any more mayhem by having Brate help out Wester with him before continuing on down the field.

The only problem with that plan was the part about Brate eventually going out on his route. Oh, at first Brate and Wester had Irving hemmed up pretty well, but damn near as soon Brate went out on his route, Wester had fend for himself. That was all she wrote.

Irving had been locked up down the middle of Wester initially when Brate was helping out, but he quickly stepped wide outside and away from Wester once Brate was gone and then swatted Wester’s hands off him to get to a quick edge rush.

Once again, he couldn’t quite get to Winston to sack him, but he did force Winston to throw it before he was ready again. This time the ball ended up being off target to Mike Evans, who looked to be open for at least a first down, if not more.

With only about a snowball’s chance in hell of pulling off the upset at that point, the Bucs lined up to try to convert a fourth-and-12. To cap off his incredible fourth quarter at left defensive end, Irving bull rushed the hell out Wester and then slipped inside of his block to force Winston out of the pocket. Winston would eventually throw a pick on that play while running for his life to end the game for all intents and purposes.

As evidenced in his first go around as Hoss this season, Irving can certainly make plays inside, but given what he showed at left defensive end on Sunday night, I have to believe we’ll see more of him there going forward.

A better pass rush has been a glaring need for the Cowboys just about all season, even with all of the success they have been having. If Irving can come close to reproducing those kinds of results at defensive end against other teams, the Cowboys will be tough to beat in the playoffs. He may end up being what they have been looking for all along.

Or not.

Only one way to really find out.

However, regardless of what the future may hold, for this week Irving was the answer on defense for the Cowboys against the Buccaneers. No matter why they decided to play him at left defensive end for the whole fourth quarter, he clearly made the most of his opportunity and was a big part of why they were able to pull off that win.

Irving had one and a half sacks, he helped force a turnover, knocked a pass down, helped force a tackle for loss, and got a dude benched. Not too shabby for a guy who only had 1.5 sacks in the first 24 games of his career before Sunday.

With his second breakout game of the season, David Irving earned my Hoss of the Week for Week 15.