The NFL provided its 32 clubs with sundry roster exemptions and expansions to accommodate for playing football amid the COVID-19 pandemic. However, the league is starting to tighten up on those exceptions.
According to Mike Garafolo from the NFL Network, the NFL and the NFLPA have agreed to limit the number of players who can return from injured reserve in a given season along with how many times said player can return. The new wait time between designation and next game played increases from three from 2020-21 to four starting 2022. Practice squad players similarly have to wait four games between reserve designation and the next game played.
The parties have negotiated in good faith and agree to the following. Clubs are permitted to “designate for return” up to eight (8) players for return from the Reserve/Injured List and/or the Reserve/Non-Football Injury/Illness List to the Club’s 53-player Active/Inactive List or from the Practice Squad/Injured List to the Practice Squad. A player may be designated for return for a maximum of two (2) times in one (1) season, but each designation will count against the Club’s eight (8) permissible designations. A player designated for return from the Reserve/Injured List or the Reserve/Non-Football Injury Illness List is eligible to return to practice or the Active/Inactive List after four (4) games have elapsed since the date he was placed on the applicable Reserve list. A player designated for return from the Practice Squad/Injured List is eligible to return to the Practice Squad after four (4) games have elapsed since the date he was placed on the Practice Squad/Injured List. This agreement shall take effect immediately.
The cutdown on injured reserve placements and reactivations will make trimming down to a 53-man roster throughout the preseason more harrowing than last season. Clubs have to cut to 85 players after the first preseason game, 80 after the second, and finally a 53-man roster following the third and final preseason tilt. Practice squads are expected to stay at 16 players.
