The Cowboys defense has endured its share of criticism this season, but good luck ignoring the team's frisky pass rush.
After knocking around 49ers quarterback C.J. Beathard with five sacks in Week 7, Dallas blasted Kirk Cousins with four more takedowns in Sunday's 33-19 win over Washington.
Demarcus Lawrence, the team's star edge rusher, notched one of those sacks, while Tyrone Crawford had another to go with a slew of quarterback hits. Then there's David Irving, the mammoth, third-year lineman who slammed Cousins for a pair of takedowns to bring his season-total to five.
While Lawrence currently leads the NFL with 10.5 sacks, Irving's have all come in just three games since returning from a league-mandated suspension, giving the 'Boys a legitimate stable of chaos-causing edge men.
"We're like a bunch of wild animals," Lawrence said, per Tim Cowlishaw of The Dallas Morning News. "You hit a quarterback enough times, they start looking at you like they're expecting it again."
Said Irving of the Redskins: "They know they have to respect us. We knew they had injuries today obviously, but that didn't change anything. We did our jobs, and we didn't underestimate them."
Washington's offensive line was a banged-up unit on Sunday, but Dallas has done this to opponents all year, currently ranking fifth in the NFL with 25 sacks.
The offense gets all the attention -- that won't change -- but Lawrence, Irving and Crawford have served as a juicy B-storyline all season long for a franchise with Super Bowl aspirations.
