Cowboys D-line gets boost with David Irving’s return

Defensive lineman David Irving is returning to the Dallas Cowboys this week.

That’s a boost for the Cowboys as Irving was one of their more disruptive players last season. He had four sacks, five tackles for loss, 26 quarterback pressures and forced four fumbles in 15 games, including two starts.

Irving served a four-game suspension for violating the league’s performance-enhancing drugs policy to start the season. He’ll rejoin the team on Tuesday.

“The hope is to get him integrated and see how he’s doing,” coach Jason Garrett said Monday. “We haven’t seen him in four weeks, but hopefully he’s in shape and ready to go. We’ll try to integrate him into practice and just see how he is and take it day-by-day.”

Irving had eight tackles and a forced fumble this preseason before serving his suspension.

The Cowboys have a roster exemption this week for Irving and won’t have to make a move until Saturday if he plays against Green Bay.

It appears that the Cowboys are expecting Irving to be ready to go Sunday, and rightfully so. After all, Irving forced three fumbles and had a sack in 19 snaps in last year’s game against the Packers.

That performance earned Irving NFC defensive player of the week honors.

“Hopefully he’s ready to go and in shape,” Garrett said. “He had a good training camp for us, had a good preseason for us. Hopefully in this time off, he’s done what he’s supposed to do each day to get himself ready to go.”

This story was originally published October 2, 2017 at 6:05 PM with the headline "Cowboys D-line gets boost with David Irving’s return."