The NFL owners are meeting this week, and on Tuesday, they voted to make a change to roster cuts during training camp. In previous years, teams would cut from 90 players to 75 players after the third preseason game, and then cut from 75 players to 53 players after the fourth preseason game. Albert Breer is reporting the league has removed the first cut to 75 players.
This is going to provide players at the bottom of the roster one more game of significant snap opportunities. The fourth preseason game usually sees starters getting few snaps, and this could very well mean even fewer snaps with 15 more players on each roster. The San Francisco 49ers, and every other team, could very well bench their entire starting lineup and most of their expected reserves for this game now that they’ll have as many as 37 players available to them.
The big value of this rule change is for practice squads. Teams will get another sizable chunk of snaps to use for evaluation purposes when they go to sign players to their practice squad the day after roster cuts.
And of course, this means that weekend is going to be crazy busy with roster cuts. It was already busy with the 22 roster moves to get from 75 to 53. Add in 15 more, and it’s going to be a slightly hectic Friday and Saturday across the league. And that means an even busier Sunday of waiver claims.