For any head coach, roster cutdown day is never easy.<\/p>\n
Each year, a head coach will have to call in over 30 guys into his office, one at a time, to tell them that they did not make the 53-man roster.<\/p>\n
For Dallas Cowboys head coach Brian Schottenheimer, Tuesday\u2019s cutdown was the first time he\u2019s ever had to do it.<\/p>\n
It was as advertised. \u201cIt was hard to sit down in front of those guys,\u201d he said. More often than not, coaches only call in the players who are cut. If you don\u2019t get called in, you can assume it\u2019s good news.<\/p>\n
So when defensive tackle Perrion Winfrey said that Schottenheimer wanted to see him in his office, he assumed that his time with the Cowboys was coming to a close. Winfrey had rebounded after being released by the Cleveland Browns after just one season because of multiple legal issues off the field.<\/p>\n
He was out of the NFL for almost two years, but when he arrived at training camp for the Cowboys, he had shined in a defensive tackle room in desperate need of some life. However, it was beginning to look like his strong preseason would just barely not be enough \u2014 at least to him. \u201cHe assumed he was being cut,\u201d Schottenheimer said.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe walked in, sat down in my office. [Vice president of player personnel] Will McClay and I were in there. We played it up a bit. I was a good actor.\u201d<\/p>\n
Perrion Winfrey, Brian Schottenheimer, Will McClay all emotional Schottenheimer opened his conversation with Winfrey with a negative tone, playing into the idea that he thought he was being cut. \u201cThese are hard days,\u201d Schottenheimer told Winfrey.<\/p>\n
\u201cAnd there are a lot of hard conversations that you have to have. But this is one that I\u2019ve been looking forward to, because I\u2019m telling you that you made the team.\u201d Winfrey became emotional in the first-year head coach\u2019s office. It\u2019s not often you\u2019ll see three grown men with tears coming down their face in a room together, but that\u2019s what the moment created, Schottenheimer said. \u201cHe became very emotional,\u201d Schottenheimer said.<\/p>\n
\u201cI became emotional. I look over at McClay, he\u2019s emotional. You talk about a guy who\u2019s had this amazing game taken away from him. You really realize how much these players love this game, how much they sacrifice for this game, what they have to give up and go through, the pounding it takes on their body.\u201d \u201cI\u2019m emotional for him. What I saw in my office was real tears of joy.<\/p>\n
He means it.\u201d Just simply recalling the moment caused Schottenheimer to swell up with tears in his eyes in Tuesday\u2019s press conference.<\/p>\n
He has frequently displayed emotion with the media when explaining how an individual player has moved him, and this one was no different. \u201cIt showed me the passion that he has for this game and the pain that he\u2019s had to go through in having this taken from him,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cI told him, \u2018The reason we wanted to do it is, I wanted to see your reaction.\u2019\u201d Dallas Cowboys defensive tackle Perrion Winfrey (right) battles Los Angeles Rams center Beaux Limmer during a preseason game Aug. 9 in Inglewood, Calif.<\/p>\n
Jayne Kamin-Oncea Imagn Images Defensive tackle battle It came down to the wire for all of the Cowboys\u2019 defensive tackles, as only Osa Odighizuwa and Solomon Thomas got the luxury of sitting out the preseason.<\/p>\n
What put Winfrey over the edge was a sequence in one of the final few snaps he played in the final preseason game. \u201cWe\u2019re playing in the fourth quarter of a preseason game we\u2019ve already won,\u201d Schottenheimer recalls.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re on the goal line at the 1, defense is trying to get a stop. He\u2019s absolutely trying to go crazy motivating those other guys.<\/p>\n
If you can\u2019t cheer for that, I don\u2019t know what you can cheer for.\u201d In an exclusive interview with the Star-Telegram after the game, Winfrey showed appreciation to the Cowboys for giving him an opportunity to play again in the NFL. He said that he was willing to put his \u201clife, body, whatever else on the line\u201d to see the team win.<\/p>\n
When Schottenheimer heard that quote, it affirmed his own decision from just a few hours earlier. \u201cHe\u2019s a special young man who deserves this opportunity,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe\u2019s earned it. I tip my cap to him.\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" For any head coach, roster cutdown day is never easy. Each year, a head coach will have to call in over 30 guys into his office, one… <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":94087,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-94086","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-nfl"],"yoast_head":"\n