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What: “Up Close Special With Roy Firestone”

Where: ESPN, Saturday, 2-2:30 p.m.

Michael Irvin sat down with Roy Firestone for his most extensive interview since his drug arrest in 1996, when he was found in a hotel room with a teammate and two women. While the Dallas Cowboy wide receiver does not come across as the greatest guy in the world, you may feel a tinge of sympathy.

“I made mistakes,” Irvin says, “but I keep getting back up, keep fighting.”

Irvin loses points when he puts too much blame on the media. “I’m human, but they just keep coming,” he says, adding that a lot of what the media ran with wasn’t accurate.

Firestone tells Irvin that maybe people want to see him humbled.

“I said I screwed up, but they want to see somebody break,” Irvin says. “They didn’t break me. They hurt me but didn’t break me.”

He says the only time he was viewed as human was this season when “I lay on that carpet.” He was referring to the neck injury that has probably ended his career.

Firestone, after returning home from doing the interview in Dallas, said, “It’s the first time I’ve done an interview where I could see someone’s hands trembling.”