Howie Roseman and Nick Sirianni

Howie Roseman: I think when we talk about being together all year and all the things we do, this is the toughest day of the year for us. You start your season and you’re letting guys go that you’ve brought into the building that you care about as people. Obviously, you’ve selected them as players.

I want to start by thanking all the players that we had as we opened camp, the effort and energy they brought to us, and obviously, we hope to get as many of them back as possible now. We’re always keeping the door open, as you guys have seen, bringing guys back who we’ve brought in here. Great group, great people, and obviously, a tough day. As we go through it here and go have conversations with each and every one of them, [Head] Coach [Nick Sirianni] and I sit down with each and every one of them and have conversations. Although it’s hard, just really appreciate the opportunity to do that with all those guys.

Q. Coach, how hard is it on you and your staff with these guys every day? (Al Thompson)

Nick Sirianni: First of all, you build relationships. That’s the whole thing we’re in. That’s why we’re here in the first place to help guys achieve their dreams, achieve their goals. I think that’s the reason I got into coaching. You build those relationships with guys and then you have to let 38 of them walk, which is always hard.

You build the relationships. You work on that from day one of OTAs all the way until we are [where we are] right now, but I don’t for a second– [Executive Vice President/General Manager] Howie [Roseman] and I have to do that 38 times, which is hard, but I don’t ever let myself think, ‘Man, this is going to be a lot harder on [me than it is for that guy].’ I don’t want to play the victim here at all on that because I know they’re the ones going through that and it’s going to be a lot harder on them, but it is not an easy thing for all those reasons that I said.

And everyone has a role on this football team. Everyone has contributed to this football team to date, and some guys you continue on with and some guys you don’t. That’s just the nature of this, unfortunately. But we appreciate all their contributions to helping us get to where we are right now and be ready for this season.

Q. Why did you trade for QB Sam Howell? (Jeff McLane)

Howie Roseman: We traded for Sam Howell. We know the player really well. Spent a lot of time on him coming out. Ironically, I think the only college Thursday night game I’ve gone to in the last 10 years was Pitt-North Carolina, and we ended up getting both those quarterbacks, which is ironic, like I said.

We had done a lot of work on him coming out. Saw him firsthand as a starter with Washington. Obviously, he had tremendous success in those games, had a lot of appreciation for him as a player and his talent level and the person that he was spending time with him. So, a guy who’s always on our radar. Just felt like for our team right now, the hardest part for us is trying to balance the development of players, the development of young players who we like, and doing whatever we can to go out and defend our title and to put the best team forward here for Dallas and going forward.

I think everything we’re doing with those parallel paths and trying to figure out where we can get away with developing some guys that we think can help us in the future and where we can help the team in the short term and make sure that we are covered. In this instance, just felt like Sam had a lot of value for our team right now. That doesn’t say we don’t like our young quarterbacks who were here, that we don’t have great hope and promise for those guys, and we’ll just see what happens in the next 24 hours and where we go about getting some of these guys back. But, just felt like it was the right thing to do here for the short term to make this trade and bring Sam in.

Q. How about the trade for T Fred Johnson? Why not just sign him when he was here in the offseason? (Dave Zangaro)

Howie Roseman: I think from our perspective, to just go, ‘Why not sign him?’ There’s also in his mind. He understands that we have two All Pro-level offensive tackles. He’s in a stage in his career where he played really well and he was looking for an opportunity. So, just because we didn’t sign him doesn’t mean we weren’t trying to sign him. I think for him, he was looking to see what he could do somewhere else because of the situation that we had. When the opportunity arose to bring him back, we jumped at it. Just someone that we feel really good about having here.

That offensive tackle position, just like the quarterback position, you can never have too many of those guys that come in and play for you over the course of a season. We’re trying to play a lot of games here. Over the course of those games, you’re going to need guys to step up in back-up roles. Fred’s shown he can do it at a championship level, and so just really excited to bring him back.

Q. Specifically with QB Kyle McCord, did you see qualities that make you look forward to trying to develop him, if you can get him back? (Reuben Frank)

Nick Sirianni: I think he did some good things and promising things through camp. Obviously, we liked him enough to draft him onto this football team. I always battle with that myself of how much opportunity can you give your three’s? He shows good promise of where to go with the football consistently. And again, we’re looking at everything– practices, meetings, games, all the things. He has the ability to be accurate, and he does a lot of good things.

My job as the coach is to try to provide them opportunities to be able to continue to develop and always thinking about how we can do that with our young players. We’ve got a great front office as far as in our development of players. We have great coaches to help develop players, and that’s what I’m always thinking about with those. How do we get them more opportunity? How do we do different things with them? And that’s not just Kyle, that’s all our three’s and practice squad guys of that sort.

Q. What did you see in CB Kelee Ringo? Where was the drop off from what you expected was going to come out of him and how he handled—(Brooks Kubena)

Howie Roseman: I don’t know. In terms of a clear-cut starter, I think that we’ve got a bunch of good players at the corner position. I don’t think that’s necessarily a weakness on this football team. I think that we start by having an outside corner in Quinyon, who we think is ready to take another jump and an unbelievable player, and we have another corner in [DB] Cooper DeJean, who we think, again, is one of the best young corners in the league.

I feel very fortunate to start that position there. I think that sometimes we look at weaknesses in terms of strengths. I’ve been here a long time. To have two young corners like that, that’s a position of strength. And then we have a lot of guys at that position who are young, who have a lot of talent in their body. I’m excited about the corners that we have on this football team. I kind of look at it a different way.

When you look at those guys, they have different skill sets, they have different strengths. You talk about Kelee. I mean Kelee is big. He’s fast, he’s strong. Kelee has shown that he’s one of the best special teams players in this league, which I think is a huge thing for our football team. I probably take it a little bit differently about that position. I think that that’s a position that we have strength in numbers there, and I’m looking forward to seeing those guys play against Dallas.

Q. With WR Darius Cooper, what’s the backstory on how you guys were able to identify him and what do you see as his potential? (Tim McManus)

Nick Sirianni: As far as his potential, one thing I think about him is he has this ability. Not everybody has an ability to win one-on-one, and I think he’s shown that through camp that he has tools in his body to be able to win. He’s big, he’s strong, he’s quick. My take on receivers always is the best guys have good body quickness and good play strength, and he has those things. The other thing I think is he’s tough, right? Because we know we’re going to try to get the ball to [WR] A.J. [Brown]. We’re going to try to get the ball to [WR] DeVonta [Smith]. We’re going to try to get the ball to [TE] Dallas [Goedert]. We’re going to try to get the ball to [RB] Saquon [Barkley] in the passing game. And so, some guys have to come up a different way. They have to come up with doing some of the dirty work.

I think that this guy is a really strong football player who can do some of the dirty work stuff for us as far as our blocking, as far as special teams, as far as good speed to be able to clear things out. And really when you have a guy like that, there’s opportunities for him as well in the pass game that mesh off of some of those things. I’m looking forward to watching him continue to develop. [Wide Receivers Coach] Aaron [Moorehead] has done a really good job with him. [Offensive Coordinator] Kevin [Patullo]’s done a really good job with him of helping him develop. I think he’s got some tools in his body to continue to develop. So, really excited.

Just really always appreciative of Howie and his staff of bringing in these guys. We’ve had a lot of free agents make this football team in the past four years since I’ve been here. [S] Reed Blankenship comes to mind, [FB] Ben VanSumeren, there’s a lot of guys. I mean, I could go [former Eagles WR] Britain Covey, [CB] Eli Ricks. They’ve done just such a good job, obviously, Howie and his staff in the draft. But what I think gets overlooked sometimes is the work that happens after the draft and then also to the coaches that are helping these guys develop. You bring in the right guys that have tools and you bring in the right guys that love this game of football that are tough. Those guys have a tendency to reach their ceiling, and I pride ourselves in that. I’m not hiring any coaches that can’t help these guys develop fundamentally. We’ve got a lot of good coaches on the staff, too. It’s just a good combination to have and I think Darius has benefited from that and he’ll continue to get better.

Q. Did QB Tanner McKee’s injury in the short-term potential need, did that affect your thinking at that position? (John McMullen)

Howie Roseman: We would’ve made the trade for Sam Howell regardless of any situation with our first two quarterbacks. We just thought it was an opportunity to improve in the short-term quarterback position, which is obviously a hugely important position. For us, having those three guys again as we start the season, the opportunity to have those guys with the experience that they have in that room, just we felt like it was in the best interest of the team for this season.

Q. Going back to WR Darius Cooper, what was your first time seeing him and how did you guys find him? (Dave Zangaro)

Howie Roseman: Yeah, a lot of credit to our scouting staff. When we talk about the draft and the draft picks and the front board, there’s a lot of voices here. Myself, coach, are a big part of the front board and our senior staff when we talk about it, our assistant GMs, our Vice President of Player Personnel. We give our area scouts a chance to put their names on free agents and go get those guys and our area guys did a great job. [Southwest Area Scout] Cam [Bradfield] did an unbelievable job. I think [Director of Player Personnel] Phil [Bhaya] was a big part of that too. You just watch him, and you see obviously he’s not playing in the SEC, but you see that he’s got talent. When he came in here just seeing how big and strong he is, I mean, we sat with him today and he’s sitting there in shorts and a t-shirt and you’re looking at him and you’re going, ‘this guy has so much developmental qualities for us and what a great kid.’  Obviously, it starts now, we tell all these guys, there’s no scholarships in the NFL, they got to keep earning it, but he’s done everything up to this point to earn the opportunity.

Q. What do you like about the defensive line as far as the depth at edge rusher and also defensive tackle, I mean two guys he kept with DT Gabe Hall and DT Byron Young. What did you like about those guys? (Martin Frank)

Howie Roseman: Well, two very different guys in Gabe Hall and Byron Young. Gabe Hall’s another credit to our developmental program. This is a guy that we followed who if he probably would’ve came out after his junior year, would’ve been first, second day pick. We got him as a free agent last year and our guys went to work on him because he’s got tools in his body. This is a big, long athletic defensive tackle and really spent last year on the practice squad developing those qualities. And think about some of the trades we made here. Two of the trades we made with [Raiders DT] Thomas Booker and [Packers T/G] DK [Darian Kinnard] were guys that we developed here with our developmental program. And that’s the success of those. Obviously, we will miss those guys, wish them on. But this is another example of that. And Gabe Hall and then Byron was an SEC player at Alabama.

We knew really well coming out of the draft third round pick of the Raiders, we claimed him last year. He’s heavy handed, really strong ability to really block destruct. I think for that, that’s always a skillset that we’re looking for. In defensive linemen, you talk about the rest of that group and we drafted [DT] Ty Robinson in the fourth round, and again, rookies, they keep developing. You’re not looking for those guys, you’re not expecting those guys to be fully developed when you get them. That’s what we get them here for and get in the NFL and develop them and see what their strengths and weaknesses are and see what they can do in their first year. Some guys in their first year are fortunate. They played a really high level. Other guys take a minute for them to develop.

Then our top three guys we’re very, very, very excited about our top three guys in that room at [DT Jalen Carter] JC [DT] Jordan [Davis] , [DT] Moro [Ojomo], those guys all look prime to have a great year.

Incredible confidence in those guys at the defensive tackle position. And then you go out on the edge, and you talk about [OLB] Nolan and  [OLB] Jalyx [Hunt] starting there, those guys just really tremendous competitors, tools in their body. We saw what they can do in the playoff run last year, really believe in those guys. And we brought in [OLB] Josh [Uche], we brought in [OLB] Azeez [Ojulari] we brought in [DE Ogbo Okoronkwo] O and obviously we got [OLB] Pat [Patrick Johnson] as well here. Just again, I think some of these positions we look at, we have solid players across the board. We have tremendous confidence in those guys and there’s different ways to do it. Sometimes you do it with stars, and you go down from that, but we feel like there’s really good players in that D-line room across the board.

Q. If I could follow up on specifically, obviously we talk about a lot of the guys that just make the roster or don’t to stay, but you mentioned DT Jalen Carter. How does his presence and the future that you have with him conceivably affect how you’ve constructed the rest of that defensive line? He’s out there for almost every play. (Jeff McLane)

Howie Roseman: Yeah. [DT] Jalen’s [Carter] shown how dominating he can be as a player. When you have that guy and when defensive offensive linemen are sliding to that guy, it creates opportunities for the guys playing next to him. You have to count for him. If you’re going to block him one on one, he’s got a great chance to win those matchups. I mean, he’s that kind of player and he’s a special player. Where [DT] Jordan [Davis] is and [DT Moro] Ojomo, I mean you guys are out of camp every day. You see those guys, they’re in the best shape of their life. I mean they look prime for a big year and they’re physically dominant as well. When you start with those guys and then what they do for you out on the edge, because you have to pay attention to those inside guys because quickest way to the quarterback is a straight line. I think for us, you’ve seen it. You’ve been here a long time, Jeff, you’ve seen that over the last decade and probably even a little bit more. The resources we put into our interior defensive line, it is a huge part of our team building and I feel like that is a chance to be a real strength for this team.

Q. [Regarding how Howie feels with the roster he is handing to Nick Sirianni given what the plan was back in March of 2025.] (Zach Berman)

Howie Roseman: Yeah, I would say we’re not done here. We’re not done. We’ll see what happens in the next 24 hours. I think I said this the last time we spoke, we got a lot of picks here and we’re happy to use those picks in the draft, but I think for us, the early part of the season, September, we have to see what we have and if we need something, I’ll do whatever I can to help this football team and be aggressive. [Chairman/Chief Executive Officer] Jeffrey [Lurie] gives me that opportunity to do that. I don’t think that we’re done, this is a work in progress.

Nick Sirianni: Not giving me the keys quite yet.

Howie Roseman: Yeah, not yet. Not yet. No. He’s going to drive. But we’re, we’re going to continue sitting together. I think that that’s where we have to be. I would say this, obviously last year was a great year and throughout the year we’re trying to improve the team. I think that even after the trade deadline, you’re sitting there and you’re going, ‘Hey, is there anything else we can do? Is there things that we can continue to do?’ I don’t sit here no matter what the year is, no matter what the time of the year is and feel content with what we’re doing. We’ll continue to look for opportunities. I promise when I leave here, I’ll go back upstairs and we will be looking for opportunities tonight, tomorrow and we’ll continue to look through them every day here until we stop playing. And then we’ll take a couple day break, and then we’ll keep looking for guys.

Q. Howie, what made you want to go get WR John Metchie? What did you like about him coming out of Alabama and how do you see his fit? (Cayden Steele)

Howie Roseman: Yeah, I liked a lot of things about his tape at Alabama. Coach and I, when we were watching him, went back and watched his Alabama tape too. He’s a natural separator. He can play inside and out. He’s really good at the top of the route. He’s a really good route runner. He’s got really good hands, tremendous character. Just really excited about that receiver room. We will see what we even get here in the next 24 hours as we go forward to kind of complete it. Because again, we think of the roster one through 70 and we’re not done completing that. So, getting him and again, you guys are out there every day, you see [WR Jahan] Dotson and you see how comfortable he looks and how excited we are about him in the second year and having him over the offseason. He’s a really good player. Overall, just excited about that room.

Q. As far as you mentioned with DE Ogbo Okoronkwo and LB Patrick Johnson, what did you like about Okoronkwo’s traits and was there anything that separated him from Patrick and others trying for that spot? (Ed Kracz)

Howie Roseman: We’re big fans of Pat Johnson, and again, with 1 through 70, we’ve got to work through our roster here, and he had a tremendous camp. He could rush the pass or he could set the edge. He plays on special teams. He’s an Eagles draft pick, so we really like Pat. Obviously, he’s out there. We’ve got to see what happens here in the next 24 hours.

But, he’s a guy we love having on this football team. He’s got get off, he’s explosive. You see that he can rush, he can win one-on-one matchups on the edge. We had followed him through college and then as he started his career, in LA and Houston. Then, I remember Coach and I, when we practiced against Cleveland a couple of years ago, just going, ‘Man, that guy’s hard to block.’ I think that as he gets more familiar with our defense and can play fast, he’s got the tools to certainly help us in a rotation.

Q. With your punt returner, are you comfortable with WR Jahan Dotson or DB Cooper DeJean doing that? Or do you think that’ll come from the practice squad? (Jeff McLane)

Nick Sirianni: We don’t have to make any public announcements. I don’t think that giving any of that information right now to the Cowboys would be our best benefit. But Coop did it at a high level last year. Jahan’s done it at a high level in college. They’ve both been working hard to be experts at their craft on that. We feel good about that. We will see who we roll out there Week One, but feel good about the roster.

I’m sure as we get our practice squad stuff back, we’ll feel good about guys there as well. Like Howie said, we’re thinking about a 70-man roster, not a 53-man roster. I know we have good options. I’m confident in guys catching the football because that always starts with catching the football. I can’t tell you how many times I watch tape and people lose field position because they don’t catch it.

I feel good about that, but I also feel good about them having the ability to make plays with the ball in their hands as well and the security of the ball when the ball is in their hands. Those guys work hard at that as well. I know we have good options. We have a plan. Just right now, not going to share that with anybody.

Q. In terms of waiving G Kenyon Green, he was part of one of the more talked about trades from the offseason with moving on from S C.J. Gardner-Johnson. With how that ended up playing out, how do you look back on that trade? (Dave Uram)

Howie Roseman: I don’t look at things in a vacuum. I look at the big picture of how we’re trying to build this football team– what resources and what we have to build this football team. That’s money, that’s draft picks. I look at it as how we’re going to build this team for 2024, 2025, 2026. So, I don’t really look at it just in the value of just one specific move. We had to do a bunch of things here that we thought were in the best interest of our team to compete this year, but also to compete going forward. I think that’s a big reason that we made that move there.

In terms of Kenyon, obviously he missed a bunch of time here, which hurt him. I think that when you come here and you play offensive line for the Philadelphia Eagles, understanding that how we want our offensive linemen to play with the fundamentals that [Offensive Line Coach] [Jeff] Stout[land] is teaching to make them compete at a high level, it takes time, and he ran out of time here. That doesn’t mean that he isn’t a guy that we’d want to work with if the opportunity presented itself. But again, we didn’t want to lose [S] Chauncey [C.J. Gardner-Johnson]. That was just some of the nature of the business.

Sometimes when you do that, you’ve got to obviously find partners and do the best you can in those situations. So, not everything here is going to work out perfectly. I’m the first one to admit we will make some mistakes, but I promise you we’re going to keep shooting and we’re going to do our best to put together the best team that we possibly can for our team, for our fans, for our ownership.

Q. Some of those developmental offensive linemen you did keep, what went into the decision for guys like T Cameron Williams and G/C Trevor Keegan? (EJ Smith)

Howie Roseman: I think that when you look at what we’re trying to do here, we look at it and say, ‘If we let this guy go, are we going to have to go into the draft next year and draft someone in the third round, the fourth round, and the fifth round to replace them?’ Sometimes that doesn’t work out perfectly. When you look at the quarterback position, we were not able to do that here, but when we look at those offensive linemen, they’re really hard to find.

We just talked about Kenyon and these guys who have an opportunity to get their experience and be with Stout, you look at their developmental qualities and where they could be. I think that you talk about a guy like Cam and you’ve got to look at it like, ‘If this guy went back into school, where would he be a year from now? Where can we get this guy two years from now? What would that look like?’

When you look at the roster like coach allows us to do, we’re saying, ‘Alright, it’s 1 through 70 and we’ve got to really make sure 1 through 48 are ready for the games, but we have a couple spots where we can make sure we’re developing guys and we’re not losing them.’ It’s really a part of the strategy that we’re trying to do here. Not trying to hurt the team in the short term but also understand if these guys can help us down the road and save us a high draft pick, that’s incredible value. He’s got a long way to go to do that. We just talked about Coop [WR Darius Cooper] and any of these rookies, they’ve got to earn it every day, but he did a great job of showing us the ability that he can have.