The Dallas Cowboys aren’t interested in making a statement. They’re interested in winning football games.
That was the point stressed Wednesday by Cowboys head coach Jason Garrett after the announcement that the team had signed Michael Sam, the NFL’s first openly gay player, to its practice squad.
“This is about football,” Garrett said, via ProFootballTalk. “We evaluated him as a football player and felt like he could help us as a football player. We want to see what he can do. Our attention and focus is on football. It’s on getting ready for the 49ers. That’s the culture that we have around here, that’s the culture that we continue to have.”
Sam, who was released by the St. Louis Rams over the weekend and cleared waivers, practiced Wednesday with the Cowboys but is a long way from cracking the Dallas’ active roster. Because of this, Garrett said the team is paying far more attention to defensive lineman Lavar Edwards, who was acquired Saturday in a trade with Tennessee Titans.
“We’ve got to be careful about spending too much time on a practice roster player,” Garrett said. “We traded for a defensive end who’s going to be on our active roster, from Tennessee. We picked up a defensive lineman who we think is going to be on our active roster. So we tried to address the situation.”
Edwards is expected to be active Sunday for the Cowboys’ season opener against the San Francisco 49ers.
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