Cowboys CB Kelvin Joseph back at practice; needs to clean up penalties

Cornerback Kelvin Joseph was back at practice on Thursday, a full participant after missing the Cowboys’ Wednesday session due to dental surgery.

The obvious irony is that watching Joseph struggle through his second pro season has been a little like getting a root canal for most Cowboys fans up to this point.

Joseph’s eight penalties are tied with rookie offensive lineman Tyler Smith for most on the team. The difference, of course, is that Smith’s eight flags have come over 1,162 snaps played. Joseph has done it in 450.

But then there’s the kinds of penalties Joseph is drawing. A face mask call against the Giants in Week 3. Unnecessary roughness in Week 6 against Philadelphia. An illegal blindside block. An illegal block above the waist. Two flags for fair catch interference just in the month of December.

Head coach Mike McCarthy takes a more patient stance than most fans, but acknowledges that the 23-year-old needs to clean things up.

“The biggest thing when you look at mistakes: behavioral mistakes or discipline mistakes or physical mistakes, they all kind of fall into a category. When I look at the interference- even live, talking to the officials- he’s trying to do it right,” McCarthy said the day after the team’s Week 17 win over Tennessee, which include one of those fair catch fouls.

“They don’t use the ‘halo’ approach anymore, but it is a good teaching tool for the amount of room you’ve got to give the returner the opportunity to catch the ball. In his mind, he established his position, and then the returner moved forward right at the end of it. I chalk that up as a tough learning experience for a young player. But, yeah, the number of penalties, we’ve got to be better there.”

Once expected to step up and play starting corner after season-ending injuries to both Jourdan Lewis and Anthony Brown, Joseph got torched when given more of an opportunity on defense against Indianapolis, Houston, and Jacksonville.

But the Cowboys have stuck by Joseph, even dating back to the March shooting that left a man dead outside a Dallas club. Joseph was identified as a person of interest to police, but only after surveillance camera footage released weeks later linked him to the incident. Two men from Joseph’s hometown were subsequently arrested; there have been no further developments since.

Joseph himself has not spoken publicly about the episode, but he hasn’t exactly let his play this season do much speaking for him either.

At…