On rookie quarterback Nate Sudfeld making the team as the third quarterback: “I think that was pretty much the plan. You want to have three. Some teams go with two and a practice-squad guy. We thought that Nate [Sudfeld] showed enough in the preseason where somebody might give him a chance. I think he’s in a good spot, man. He’s going to develop here on this roster and learn from Kirk [Cousins] and learn from Colt [McCoy] how to be a pro and just continue to develop. Having three is important nowadays.”

On the confidence in running back Robert Kelley to have just three running backs: “We felt really good about Robert. We felt really good about Mack Brown. That was a tough decision also. We would like to keep all four, but we kept 11 defensive backs, so some other positions had to suffer because of that, and that was one of them. That was just our decision. We feel good that the three backs that we have right now are going to be very good, and with Mack Brown waiting in the wings, we have four excellent ones in-house.”

On keeping Austin Reiter to give them three centers: “He’s one of those guys that really, I thought, developed. He just continued to get better and better. I think he’s proved his worth. And then with [Spencer Long’s] injury a little bit, we wanted to make sure we had another center in the building. He’s just going to keep on developing, getting better. Having three centers is important; we learned that last year. We were really short last year throughout the season. We brought in a couple guys toward the end of the year. I’d love to just work in-house with the center position instead of having to go on the waiver wire Week 8 and find a new center. That’s hard to do. Hopefully our guy stays healthy — Kory [Lichtensteiger] — and Spencer continues to develop and we’ll have Austin here.”

On cutting Logan Paulsen instead of carrying four tight ends: “That was another really tough decision there. Logan has done a lot of good things for this football team. Coming off the injury, he did a great job of getting himself ready to compete. We just chose to go with three tight ends instead of four. We’re probably a little light there, but luckily we added Wes [Saxton] to the practice squad today, so we have four in the building. But that was another tough decision. Logan is an excellent football player, and Chicago gobbled him up right away.”

On keeping six defensive linemen: “I feel good about our defensive line. They all work extremely well together. I think they complement each other very well. We have some guys that are maybe a little better against the run, some guys are a little bit better pass-rushers, but when you start rotating them around, keeping them fresh, I think they all bring something very positive to this team.”

On keeping undrafted rookie defensive end Anthony Lanier over fifth-round pick Matt Ioannidis: “It was very close. They’re different players. Lanier really showed throughout training camp and throughout the preseason games … he’s 6-foot-6, he’s very young, very raw. We didn’t want to risk losing a big defensive lineman that has some pass-rush ability. We’re going to try to keep him here to develop him. Matt, we were hoping he wouldn’t get claimed and he didn’t. We were able to bring him back. But really, we had to choose one. They’re both excellent football players, and it was a very close, very hard decision to make. Fortunately we worked out and got them both.”