Howie Roseman on the roster

Highlights of Eagles GM Howie Roseman's Q&A with reporters Friday evening:

--(on trade with Browns for safety David Sims) Athletic. Solid tackler. Can play on special teams. We played the Browns. We've obviously scouted them a lot since we're opening with them. We're happy to get him.

--(on releasing veteran cornerback Joselio Hanson) It was a matter of a confidence in (Brandon) Boykin. In this salary cap era, you need your own players to play. And we have a lot of confidence in Brandon.

--(on releasing DT Antonio Dixon) That was a hard one. He brings great personality to this team. He's somebody we care about both personally and professionally. Sometimes you have to make tough decisions. And that was noe of them.

--(comfortable with just 8 offensive linemen on roster after releasing Julian Vandervelde?) You always want a lot of offensive linemen. In the next 24-48 hours, that's an area that we'll look at both on active roster and certainly on practice squad. We'll have enough depth at that position to feel adequately covered.

--(on Trent Edwards) Trent came in, he was the fourth quarterback. Wasn't getting a lot of reps in minicamps. And he continued to persevere and learn the offense. He didn't complain about anything. He was a consummate professional and teammate, and when he got the opportunity to play, he performed.

--(did Boykin outplay Hanson?) Jose has been a very good player for us for a long time. We just felt like this was a move where Brandon was going to play for us and he was ready to go right now.

--(your safety situation) You have to add in Colt Anderson and the progress he's shown. We'll see when he's ready to go. But we feel by doing this (activating him off PUP list), he'll be ready to play and contribute before that six-week (PUP) period would have started. If you add that in to David Sims, we think that gives us a jolt.

--(where does Jaiquawn Jarrett fit into safety puzzle?) Jaiquawn had some adversity during training camp. He responded to it. We look for him to continue to grow as a player. He could've gone in the tank. Instead, he continued to work hard and continued to get in his playbook and study it and responded.

--(difficulty finding good safeties) When you talk to people this time of year about the position they're looking for, you always hear o-line, d-line. Now you hear safety. Everyone's looking for safeties. They're really hard to find. We've talked about this publicly. We've talked about it with our scouts. It's just a position where guys who used to play it are moving to other spots. Some of it is the advent of the spread offense in college football. Some of it is other positions being glorified.

--(on keeping Chris Polk as fourth running back) You talk about his production and potential. Every time he touches the ball something positive happened. He really has the skill set that fits this offense. He can catch. He can pass protect. He can run inside and outside. He did everything that was asked for to make this football team.

--(if cut Polk, unlikely he would've gone unclaimed and been able to sign him to practice squad?) I think that's safe to say.

--(keeping just five wideouts) We've gone deeper at that position in the past. But we feel comfortable going into this game. We'll wait and see how long Riley (Cooper) is going to be out.

--(can CB Trevard Lindley play safety?) He can. He's a solid tackler. He's got a good feel for the game. That's one of the things you look at with him. His versatility. That he could play that (safety) position. Now that we've got five safeties on the roster, we'll see if that happens. But he can play inside, outside. He can play safety.

--(possibility of more roster moves over next few days) If we anything that can be an upgrade for our football team, we're going to look at that. We like our roster. We feel comfortable if this is the roster we go to Cleveland with. But at same time, we're going to have a lot of names in front of us in the next couple of hours. We're gonna explore all of that.

(2 weeks ago, would you have thought Trent Edwards had legitimate chance to make team?) Two weeks ago, yes. If you would've said two months ago was that the expectation, probably not. But that's the great part about training camp and the preseason games. It's a great lesson to all of our scouts and all of our players. Next year, when we stand in front of them and tell them that we're going to go with what our eyes see and it doesn't matter where you came from, if you're the best player, we're going to put you on our roster, I think we can look them in the eye and they'll know that's the truth.