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The Cowboys placed defensive tackle Perrion Winfrey (#99) on injured reserve Monday. He will miss a minimum of four weeks.

Perrion Winfrey overcame the odds to make the Dallas Cowboys’ initial 53-man roster, but it may be a while before he sees the field in a game that counts.

Winfrey was inactive for last week’s loss to the Philadelphia Eagles and will now miss at least the next four weeks after landing on injured reserve Monday.

The 2022 fourth-round pick out of Oklahoma, who turned 25 on Aug. 15, has been sidelined since he hurt his back in practice on Aug. 31.

Winfrey Was a Surprising Camp Story

The 6-foot-4, 290-pound Winfrey signed with the Cowboys in June after earning All-UFL honors in the spring with the Birmingham Stallions. Despite an impressive training camp and preseason, Winfrey headed into cutdown day squarely on the roster bubble.

While Winfrey thought he was getting cut, Cowboys head coach Brian Schottenheimer surprised him with good news. Schottenheimer recalls becoming emotional when telling Winfrey he’d made the team.

“We brought Perrion Winfrey in, and he assumed he was being cut,” Schottenheimer said, via the team’s website. “And so he walked in and sat down in my office, and (vice president of player personnel) Will McClay was in there. I did play it up a little bit. …

“He became very emotional, and then I became emotional. I looked over at McClay and he had become emotional. Talk about a guy that’s had this amazing game taken away from him, and you really realize how much these players love this game, what they sacrifice to play this game and what they have to give up and go through — the pounding it takes on their bodies.”

Injury Could Complicate Cowboys’ Roster

Players on IR are required to miss a minimum of four weeks before they can be activated. Once they resume practicing, they have a 21-day window where they can rejoin the active roster. Players who are not activated within that timeframe must be either traded or released.

NFL teams are allowed to bring back up to eight players from IR.

The Cowboys beefed up the interior of their defensive line in trading for Kenny Clark, a three-time Pro Bowler with the Green Bay Packers, but they could still use more help up front. The Dallas Morning News’ Joseph Hoyt suggested Winfrey’s injury could potentially lead to Mazi Smith returning. The 2023 first-rounder was a healthy inactive in Week 1.

The Cowboys allowed 158 rushing yards (4.2 yards per carry) in the 24-20 loss to Philadelphia.

Winfrey Had Off-the-Field Issues Early in His Career

Winfrey, a former two-time Second Team All-Big 12 honoree, has spent time with two other NFL teams. In 2022 with the Cleveland Browns, he appeared in 13 games as a rookie, recording 22 tackles, one tackle for loss, and half a sack.

The following offseason, Winfrey was released by the Browns after police listed him as a suspect in an aggravated robbery incident. A few months before that, Winfrey was arrested on a misdemeanor assault charge in Texas after he was accused of causing “bodily injury” to a woman he was dating. The charge was later dismissed after Winfrey completed a pretrial diversion program.

In 2023, Winfrey appeared in one game with the New York Jets and made three tackles.

Douglas Bonjour is a breaking news contributor covering the NFL, NBA, NHL, MLB and WNBA for Heavy. He is also a contributing writer for The Associated Press and has worked for Point Spreads, the Connecticut Post and Hearst Connecticut Media as a reporter and editor. More about Douglas Bonjour