Roger Goodell wasn’t going to let himself have all the fun.

The widely ridiculed NFL commissioner was loudly booed when he first took the stage at Thursday night’s draft, a chorus he hears often when he appears before football fans, and the next day he suggested a guest announcer enjoy the same treatment.

Former star wide receiver Drew Pearson, a Cowboys Ring of Honor inductee, recalled a conversation he had with Goodell backstage on Friday before announcing Dallas’ second-round pick, which took a twist he wasn’t expecting. When Pearson proposed he goad the Eagles fans in the crowd — who already despise their old rival, who went 16-5 against the Eagles in his time — with a joking introductory comment, Goodell endorsed it, to Pearson’s astonishment.

“As the commissioner was coming back, the boos got louder,” the career Cowboy said on Pro Football Talk Live Monday morning. “And he said to me, ‘Are you ready for this?’ I said, ‘Oh yeah, I’m used to getting booed in Philadelphia, so this is no big deal.’ Then I said, ‘Maybe I’ll say something like, if it weren’t for the Eagles fans, I wouldn’t have had a career in the NFL.’ And I’m thinking he might say, ‘Oh no, don’t say anything like that. That might get them too fired up and might cause a riot out there in that crowd.’ But to my surprise, he encouraged me to say that and to get the crowd even more riled up.”

Pearson jumped at Goodell’s approval and delivered an impassioned speech saluting the Cowboys before announcing Colorado cornerback Chidobie Awuzie as their No. 60 pick. The 66-year-old emphasized Dallas’ five Super Bowl rings and Jerry Jones’ Hall-of-Fame induction this year, all to the wrath of Eagles fans, who suffered many defeats at the hands of Pearson’s Cowboys in the ’70s and ’80s.

Pearson was prepared for the worst when he kicked off his speech with the Eagles dig, even the threat of fans throwing objects at him onstage.

“The last thing coach [Tom] Landry would say when we left the locker room when we played the Philadelphia Eagles,” Pearson recalled, “was, ‘When you walk off that field, keep your helmet on,’ because they always threw things at us as we walked into the tunnel.”

Just like the commissioner, Pearson had the comfort of knowing he would be heavily protected following his performance.

“Once I got off the stage, two security guards surrounded me, they escorted me as I was going back to the green room, going to gather my stuff and then head back to the hotel,” he said. “They were with me the whole time.”

Goodell famously was drowned in boos when presenting the Patriots with their Super Bowl trophy in February, after they defeated the Falcons in dramatic fashion, 34-28. Goodell is particularly disliked among New England fans for hitting Tom Brady with a four-game suspension to start last season for his role in “Deflategate.”