DALLAS — Dallas Cowboys defensive coordinator Dan Quinn wants his players to play with an edge.
One player who has taken Quinn's message to heart is defensive end Randy Gregory, who tends to play angry.
However, Gregory went over the edge twice against the Minnesota Vikings in the 20-16 win in Week 8 at U.S. Bank Stadium. Gregory's two unnecessary roughness penalties on the Vikings' penultimate drive led to Minnesota taking a 16-13 lead with 2:51 to go in the game.
"I take full responsibility for it regardless of how I may feel about either one of them," Gregory said Wednesday. "It’s not the time and place for it, but I do tend to play on the edge with that a little bit."
Quinn says that fouls like the one Gregory incurred when he collided with running back Dalvin Cook when he was a step out of bounds was just a case of being aggressive.
"I think you want to play aggressive, and [penalties] that we call aggressive fouls, like combative fouls, sometimes you can’t [avoid them], that’s part of the nature of the game," Quinn said. "But what we can avoid are pre-snap ones where you jump offsides or you’re trying to pull a guy off the pile, those kinds of things."
The first unnecessary roughness penalty that Gregory picked up was exactly that: he was ticketed for pulling a player off the pile. The second one moved the Vikings half the distance to the goal which forced Dallas to make a goal-to-go stand to keep Minnesota out of the end zone.
"I got to do a better job as far as containing that and using it in the right way, not go overboard and get a penalty obviously," said Gregory. "I’ll be better about that here in the future."
The former 2015 second-round pick from Nebraska has 5.0 sacks, three tackles for loss, 11 quarterback hits, two forced fumbles, and a fumble recovery through six games, five of which he has started. Gregory isn't getting caught up in what he has done in the past, good or bad, but is focusing on the current opponent.
Said Gregory: "I’m trying to really look at it as a week to week thing. Every week is new and it’s a new opponent, new game plan, new mindset and that’s how I’m trying to go about it. I don’t want to get too caught up in what I did last week, whether it be good or bad. And I don’t want to look too far into the future and think about where I could be or where I should be here in 10, 12 games individually or as a team. So I think a lot of guys are locking in that way and just focusing in on this week."
The Cowboys next take on the Denver Broncos on Sunday at 12:00 p.m. Central Time at AT&T Stadium.
Do you think Randy Gregory will earn a Pro Bowl spot in 2021? Share your thoughts with Mark on Twitter @therealmarklane.