SAN ANTONIO — Throughout his stellar career as a fullback with the Dallas Cowboys, Daryl Johnston got that gnawing feeling in his stomach every year when NFL teams made their final roster cuts before the start of the regular season.
As general manager of the San Antonio Commanders, Johnston was on the other side of the equation Wednesday when the team pared its roster to 52 players for its first season in the fledgling Alliance of American Football.
But the process was still stressful for Johnston, who never had worked in the front office of a pro team before being named the Commanders' GM last June.
"It was much harder on this side," Johnston said. "It's a little bit like Ground Hog Day. You just keep entering that same scenario over and over again this morning. A range of emotion. A range of the way guys handled it and processed it. But it was all hard. Every one of them was difficult."
"It's hard being on the other side of that and, unfortunately, we're all going to be there someday. This day comes for everybody. We see John Elway, Michael Strahan, Jerome Bettis, there's a few guys that get to ride off into the sunset after they win a Super Bowl, and they get to retire on their own terms. Very few players leave this game on their own terms. I know that from the other side."
Johnston, a three-time Pro Bowler, played 11 NFL seasons, all with the Cowboys, before a neck injury forced him to retire in 1999.
Three players with local ties made the Commanders' 52-man roster -- running back Aaron Green (TCU/Madison High School), wide receiver Josh Stewart (UTSA) and kicker Joseph Zema (Incarnate Word).
San Antonio opens its 10-game regular season against the San Diego Fleet on Saturday, Feb. 9, at the Alamodome. Kickoff is set for 7 p.m.
There were 75 players on the Commanders' roster before final cuts were made Monday morning. Former UTSA quarterback Dalton Sturm, who was in the Cowboys' training camp as an undrafted rookie free agent last summer, was among the players released by the Commanders.
Former Cowboys third-string quarterback Dustin Vaughan (West Texas A&M) will start for San Antonio, and Marquise Williams (North Carolina) and Logan Woodside (Toledo) will compete for the No. 2 slot.
Johnston spoke highly of Sturm, a former walk-on who completed his career at UTSA in 2017.
"Dustin will be the most important part moving forward for this offense for this team, but we've got two really good guys behind him. And we had three," Johnston said. "It's not going to be surprising to me, at all, to see Dalton Sturm get picked up by somebody. I had several calls last night. That's why I'm surprised that he's not on a team right now."
Sturm was in the Cowboys' training camp until getting waived Aug. 21, but he maintained hope that he would get another chance to continue his football career.
That opportunity came in late November when the Commanders selected Sturm, a Goliad High School graduate, with the final selection of the AAF's quarterback draft.
The Commanders ended training camp on Wednesday. They had 21 workouts at Benson '66 Stadium on the Central Catholic campus, which will be the team's primary practice site throughout the season. The 21 workouts included a joint practice with the Atlanta Legends and a closed scrimmage at the Alamodome.
San Antonio's roster is composed of 26 offensive players, 23 defensive players and three specialists.
The Commanders are one of 10 teams in the AAF. The other nine teams, with the head coaches in parentheses, are the Atlanta Legends (Kevin Coyle), Arizona Hotshots (Rick Neuheisel), Birmingham Iron (Tim Lewis), Memphis Express (Mike Singletary), Orlando Apollos (Steve Spurrier), Salt Lake Stallions (Dennis Erickson) and San Diego Fleet (Mike Martz).
San Antonio will play in the Western Conference with Arizona, Salt Lake and San Diego. Each AAF team will play a 10-game regular season. The top two teams in the Eastern and Western conferences will advance to the playoffs, with the championship game scheduled for Sunday, April 28, in Las Vegas.
The season-opening, 52-man roster is expected to soon be available here and can also be seen below.
