Dallas Cowboys Sign Ex First-Round Linebacker Rashaan Evans, Block Poachers

Dallas Cowboys Sign Ex First-Round Linebacker Rashaan Evans, Block Poachers

FRISCO - The Dallas Cowboys are as expected signing linebacker Rashaan Evans, the former NFL first-round pick, to their 53-man roster. But there is an additional wrinkle that adds some drama to the transaction.

Evans comes up from the practice squad largely as a result of the season-ending injury decision on Leighton Vander Esch. But just in case the Cowboys were wavering on the decision on Evans, who has been in the building at The Star for the last few weeks? NFL Network reports that "several teams have been attempting to sign him off the Dallas practice squad.''

Cowboys' Evans - DallasCowboys.com / DallasCowboys.com

But now he's a Cowboys full-timer, maybe a snaps-eating replacement for Vander Esch and surely a helper in a position group led by young Damone Clark and Markquese Bell.

"That's my guy," Bell said of Clark. "Me and Damone came in together last year. We're both learning. We're teaching each other things. I was a safety so I'm telling him things from the backend perspective and he can tell me what the front is doing. We're giving each other game to help us grow."

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And now there is another "guy'' in Evans, who was the Titans' first-round pick in 2018 and was recently "signed off the couch'' by the Cowboys, who gave him about 50 percent of the snaps in last week's blowout of the Giants ... and who could be asked to much the same thing week at Carolina.

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"We're gonna ball for our brother," said Evans, reflecting on Vander Esch's neck problem. "Whenever you have a situation where you've played the game as long as I have, an injury like that hits home for me, especially when you know the kind of player he is and, also, being a competitor, you wanna be out there."

And now Evans will "be out there'' ... as a full-under-contract Cowboy.