Ex-A&M running back beefs up Cowboys,

Coach praises new acquisition as big, talented runner.

— Trading for former Texas A&M running back Christine Michael was about making the team better, Dallas Cowboys coach Jason Garrett said Monday. He wouldn’t say if it was about adding a more physical back than Joseph Randle, Darren McFadden or Lance Dunbar.

“I think as much as any- thing else, you’re looking for opportunities over the last few days to just improve your football team,” Garrett said.

“He’s a guy who was regarded fairly highly coming out of school and hasn’t had a ton of success in Seattle the fifirst couple of years, but he has a lot of traits.

“He’s a young player who we think has some ability to run the football in this league.”

The Cowboys traded a 2016 seventh-round pick to Seattle on Sunday for Michael, a 2013 second-round pick.

Michael (5 feet 10, 221 pounds) played in 14 games in his two seasons with Seattle and had 254 yards on 52 carries.

“I think he’s a talented guy,” Garrett said. “He’s a big guy. He’s physical. He’s quick. He’s explosive, can be a downhill runner. Got a good change of direction. So all those things are the things you see on tape of him coming out of school and also when he’s had opportunities in Seattle.

“We’ll try to get him up to snuff as quickly as we can and put him out on the practice fifield and begin our evaluation.”

Garrett was non-committal about how Michael fits into the Cowboys’ group of running backs heading into Sunday’s opener against the New York Giants.

“He just needs to get in here and learn what we’re doing,” the coach said. “Again, like with all the new guys coming in, their big challenge is to get acclimated to how we do things, our systems of football. So there’s going to be a lot of work initially just to see where they are.

“And then we’ll integrate them into practice, and we’ll make our evaluations from there.”

Notes: The Cowboys added a second quar- terback to their practice squad when they signed former Boise State star Kellen Moore.

Moore, 26, joined the Detroit Lions as an undrafted free agent in 2012. He was part of the team’s 53-man roster the past three seasons but was never active for a game.

“Kellen is just a really good football player and has been, really throughout his whole life,” Garrett said Monday.

“I think he had 53 starts in college and he won 50 of them — just a very, very productive player.”