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USA Today Sports Media Group
USA Today Sports Media Group
Sport
John Sigler

NFL makes big change to roster cuts process

The NFL descended on Phoenix this week for spring ownership meetings, where a number of proposals from teams were voted on — and in some cases ratified. One of the biggest changes is an overhaul for the annual roster cuts process. In 2023, every team (including the New Orleans Saints) will reduce rosters from 90 players to just 53 on Aug. 29.

That’s a huge departure from what’s been done before, when teams would gradually thin out their rosters with weekly waves of releases. Things have been trending in this direction in recent years with the number of release dates condensed down further and further. Now there’s just one.

It’s going to be tough on the players, with 1,184 of them hitting the free agent market just two weeks before the season starts. They’ll all be flooding the market together and looking for work. For teams, this may be a response to the reduced preseason, which went from four exhibition games to three, giving them fewer opportunities to evaluate players on the roster bubble. We’ll see how it all shakes out in the summer.

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