On Tuesday, the NFL approved a huge change to how teams trim their rosters down during preseason. The league has always done at least two cut-down periods during preseason to allow teams opportunities to release players in blocks before finishing off with 53 players.
But now, teams will hold only the full 90-man roster throughout preseason and cut all the way down to 53 in one day on August 29.
This is likely a response to the league cutting one preseason game from the schedule in exchange for an additional regular-season game. This gives teams a better opportunity to evaluate those players on the roster bubble before committing to those final 8-10 spots on the regular-season roster.
For the players, this is less than ideal on a couple of fronts. This means 1,184 players will be released in a tiny window with a very short period of time until the start of the regular season. This is going to create a huge turnaround and this massive number of new free agents all looking for work, teams trying to sort out the pool of available players and guys who made a final roster on the bubble wonder about their futures.
Rule Change: NFL team will now cut over 1,000 players in one day, on August 29, which is after the final preseason game.
Previously teams had cut their rosters from 90 to 75 first, and then later on from 75 to 53. pic.twitter.com/b7UFZR2IJE
— Dov Kleiman (@NFL_DovKleiman) March 28, 2023
