The busiest roster day throughout the NFL is occurring this week, and it’s not the start of free agency or the draft. Teams have to trim their 90-man rosters to 53 by Tuesday (Aug. 26), creating the initial 53-man rosters around the league ahead of the start of the season in less than two weeks.
Based on trimming their rosters from 90 to 53, 37 players are being cut from each team — meaning 1,182 players around the league are going to be waived over the next several days. All teams must reduce their roster to an initial 53 players by Tuesday at 4 p.m. ET. Teams are required to have 53 players on their active roster, but the players released still have an opportunity to be part of the 69-man roster.
This is possible via the practice squad, as teams can have a maximum of 16 players on their practice squad with one exception. If a team has a player from the International Pathway Program on its roster, it can keep 17 players. So teams can have a maximum number of players on their roster (53 active, 16 practice squad, 1 international pathway).
Players with less than four accrued seasons need to pass through the waiver wire in order to become unrestricted free agents. The NFL defines an accrued season as six or more games on either a team’s 53-man roster, injured reserve, or the physically unable to perform list. Players that have four or more accrued seasons are immediately free agents and can sign with a team at any time.
For the players with less than four years of accrued service time, teams have until noon ET on Wednesday to make a claim for a player. Essentially, teams have 20 hours to make a claim — if they so choose.
Here are all the players released heading up to the initial 53-man roster deadline, which we’ll update over the next several days:
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