The NFL is bracing for the open of 2020 training camp in less than four weeks — the vast majority of the league will be opening their doors to players on July 28th to mark the start of preparations for the 2020 season. With that date quickly approaching, the NFL is looking to iron out as many necessary policies and procedures as possible in order to ensure a safe return to football without straining each individual team’s “eco-system” amid the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic.
One such policy change was already made public this week with the decision to cut the preseason in half. Another change was announced shortly after — there will be no supplemental draft in 2020. But this latest reported change is the biggest one yet from the player’s perspective — teams may see their offseason rosters cut down from the traditional 90 players in order to bring less variables into training camp.
The potential cut down to 75 players would remove nearly half of the offseason talent off of each NFL roster, a difficult pill to swallow as teams often look to use the preseason and training camp to allow surprise players to claim roster spots. Some players on some teams may not even get the chance to link up for camp if the NFL moves forward with paring down the training camp rosters.
For the Dolphins specifically, a reduced roster could serve as a big barrier to finding the next Nik Needham or Preston Williams — although it does seem as though Miami has seen the writing on the wall on this front for quite some time, given they’ve been carrying several open spots on their offseason roster since the immediate aftermath of the 2020 NFL Draft. The Dolphins made marginal efforts to fill those slots, so at the very least the Dolphins will have less difficult decisions to make than the rest of the NFL if they’re forced to cut down on their pre-training camp roster.
