Not that it should come as any surprise, but Jason Garrett says this week’s signing of defensive end Michael Sam was motivated purely by the team’s need for depth on the defensive line.
Also not that surprising is that some skeptics have suggested the move was a publicity stunt by a team whose owner loves publicity, but this thinking ignores the fact that the Cowboys need all the pass rush help they can get and Sam was last year’s co-SEC Defensive Player of the Year. Sam was released, yes, but he was released by a Rams team with a surplus of effective defensive linemen.
“I don’t like to talk about who’s on our board and who’s off our board, but obviously he was a very good player in college, a co-defensive player of the year in maybe the best conference in college football, so his track record speaks for itself,” Garrett said, per the Fort Worth Star-Telegram. “We did not draft him, but like with a ton of players around this league, we evaluate these guys all throughout the preseason. We have pro scouts going out to games and evaluating the tape. He did some good things there. We feel he has a chance to come in at a position we’ve tried to address really throughout the off-season, throughout training camp, and compete for a spot. ... We just want to give him a chance to come in and see if he can help our football team.”
Garrett believes any extra attention the move brings is a product of those outside Valley Ranch, attention that won’t affect those within.
“[The attention] is an external thing,” Garrett said. “It comes from the outside. That’s your decision what question you want to asked. We’re focused on football.”
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