Rules of the draft
According to a post on the Professional Football Researcher's Association forum, details have never been released to the public, and thus the exact nature of the expansion draft is unclear. In his autobiography, Tom Landry stated, “Each team would be allowed to protect twenty-five of the thirty-four men on its roster. Of the nine remaining names, we could pick only three from each team.” However, there are at least two mistakes in that statement. First, the active roster limit at that time was thirty-six, not thirty-four. Second, there were at least two individuals chosen by Dallas who were not on active rosters at the time of the selections. Note in particular the selection of Joe Nicely, who was never on an NFL active roster. Thus, it would appear that teams could nominate players from their inactive rosters as well. Mark Ribowsky: “The Cowboys were permitted to sign three players from each NFL team, choosing from among eleven players left unprotected from each thirty-six man roster in an expansion draft to be held in February.” Again, nothing is said here about players not on the active roster, and Ribowsky has the date wrong. Perhaps the best conclusion is that teams were allowed to protect twenty-five players, active or inactive, and Dallas could choose from the remainder. More from Landry, “ . . . each time we picked a player off the unprotected list, a team could remove another from that list.” ==Player selections==