For many years, the NFL had two cutdown days before rosters were set at 53 players.
The first was a cut from 90 to 75 players ahead of the final round of preseason games of the summer with the second cut coming the Saturday before the start of the regular season.
That changed last year and there’s only one cut from 90 to 53 players, so there’s some time before any team will be forced to pare things down. For head coach Bruce Arians, some of that time might be spent twiddling his thumbs because he said he’d be fine cutting loose a good number of players right now.
“Our rookies have gotten close to 500 snaps,” Arians said, via the Tampa Bay Times. “So we kind of know what they can do now. It would be easy to cut down to 60 right now for me. But again we’ve got preseason games coming up, and maybe guys can show up more when the lights come on than they have in practice. They’ve put in the time. . . . We’re right on schedule.”
That should light a fire for any players on the roster bubble in Tampa even if the only result is catching the eye of another team that may be interested when the ax comes down.
