Jason Garrett Says Decision to Cut Lucky Whitehead Was in Cowboys' Best Interest

The Dallas Cowboys released Lucky Whitehead for what turned out to be a case of mistaken identity, but neither head coach Jason Garrett nor owner Jerry Jones are backing down from that decision.

"Yesterday we made a decision that we deemed to be in the best interest of the Dallas Cowboys, and we are going to stand by that decision and move on," Garrett told reporters Tuesday.

Meanwhile, Jones noted his history of defending Cowboys players.

"I will back up a player to a fault," he said.

"When we do make a decision around here in the best interest of the team to move on," Jones said to the media, "there's one thing you can forget about and that is whether you are being fair and whether you have given it consideration about what it means to the individual."

The Cowboys released Whitehead on Monday after he received an arrest warrant for failing to appear in court after a shoplifting incident in Virginia, per ESPN. However, the police department dropped all charges after discovering it had the wrong person, per Ian Rapoport of NFL Network. 

Despite the lack of legitimate off-field issues, the receiver remained out of a job.

"Let's not sugarcoat anything," Whitehead said Tuesday, per Jon Machota of the Dallas Morning News. "I was pretty much being called a liar."

According to TMZ, the 25-year-old "isn't ruling out a lawsuit" and plans to speak with his agent about how to proceed.

Although the Cowboys mostly used Whitehead as a special teams player—he tallied only nine catches during his two years in Dallas—the undrafted free agent seemingly didn't get fair treatment from the team.