Cowboys owner Jerry Jones confirmed Thursday the four-game suspension of 2015 sack leader Demarcus Lawrence.
Jones also hopes the suspension will be reduced to two games.
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While the NFL has yet to officially announce the suspension, Lawrence will appeal the four-game ban for violating the league’s substance-abuse policy. Jones is optimistic the NFL will cut Lawrence's suspension in half, like the league did for cornerback Orlando Scandrick in 2014.
"It’s under appeal and very similar to (Scandrick) — that's the situation there that it was reduced from four to two, but we wouldn’t want to be presumptuous enough," Jones said Thursday morning on Dallas radio station KRLD, via the Cowboys' website. "It's under consideration, and just like anything that's being judged, you don't want to get out here and be trying to tell them what to do,” he said. “Let them look at all the facts and all the entire situation which is what is required and will be done and maybe we can get a reduction."
The Cowboys will already be without defensive end Randy Gregory, who will have to serve his own four-game suspension for violating the substance-abuse policy. Lawrence, a second-round pick out of Boise State in 2014, had a breakout sophomore campaign with a seven-game sack streak.
The suspensions leave former Raiders defensive end Benson Mayowa and 2015 draft pick Ryan Russell as the only other defensive ends on the Cowboys' roster who have played an NFL down. The Cowboys selected Oklahoma defensive end Charles Tapper in the fourth round of last weekend's NFL Draft.