This past week's cuts started me thinking about what the Denver Broncos active roster will look like and the gauntlet of competition that a football player will have to endure to make an NFL team.
The Broncos released five players Thursday including linebackers Boss Bailey and Louis Green, safety Herana-Dave Jones, running back Kestahn Moore and cornerback Rashod Moulton.
Though none of these cuts may have come as much of a surprise to any Broncos fan, they are nonetheless interesting because they begin to shape the 2009 Roster.
It was necessary to bring the roster size down to 80 because that is the maximum number of players an NFL team is allowed to bring to training camp. more cuts will follow in the coming months as each NFL team continues to whittle down their rosters as the dawn of a new season creeps ever closer.
Cuts can happen at any time during training camp when it becomes apparent to the coaches that a player is simply not able to keep up and compete with the others at his position. There are also some set times where teams will be required to dump players from their rosters.
After the third preseason weekend the rosters are required to drop to 65 players or below and after the fourth and final preseason weekend all NFL teams are required to have an active roster of no more than 53 players as they head into the regular season.
Each team is also allowed to form a practice squad, which may consist of no more than eight players.
That means that there are 19 more broncos on the current roster who will not even make Denver's practice squad.
After that there are eight more players who are on the bubble and will fall just short of making the roster and will have to settle for serving time with the team on the practice squad in hopes of improving their skills for another shot somewhere down the line.
53 of the current 80 players will make the active roster, but even then they will have to compete each week in order to make the 45 man game-day roster, which will no doubt change each week depending on the team's game plan.
All of this does not even mention the competition between the players who make the roster to gain playing time on Sundays, let alone to secure a position as one of the 22 starting Denver Broncos.
With so much turnover in the off-season between coaches and players alike, there are few players who can rest assured that they will be one of those starters. Even a Champ Bailey needs to work and both mentally and physically to adapt to scheme changes and prove his worthiness to his new set of coaches.
With all of this in mind, here are my predictions on where the current 80 players on the roster will end up going into the 2009 season.
Cut List
# Name Pos. Ht. Wt. Age Exp. College
60 Matt McChesney G 6'4" 307 27 3rd Colorado
72 Pat Murray G 6'3" 310 24 1st Truman State
61 Mitch Erickson G 6'6" 290 23 2nd S.Dakota St.
76 Tyler Polumbus T 6'8" 310 23 2nd Colorado
68 Stanley Bryant T 6'5" 282 23 R East Carolina
77 Brandon Gorin T 6'6" 308 30 7th Purdue
87 Jeb Putzier TE 6'4" 256 30 7th Boise State
82 David Grimes WR 5'10" 177 22 R Notre Dame
84 Brandon Lloyd WR 6'0" 194 27 7th Illinois
12 Matthew Willis WR 6'0" 195 24 3rd UCLA
11 Kenny McKinley WR 6'0" 189 22 R S. Carolina
17 Lucas Taylor WR 6'0" 185 22 R Tennessee
42 Ryan Torain RB 6'1" 225 22 2nd Arizona State
99 Mathias Askew DT 6'5" 302 26 2nd Michigan State
57 Mario Haggan LB 6'3" 263 29 7th Mississippi State
51 Lee Robinson LB 6'3" 245 22 R Alcorn State
37 Tony Carter CB 5'9" 177 22 R Florida State
39 Vernon Fox S 5'10" 203 29 8th Fresno State
4 Britton Colquitt P 6'3" 205 24 R Tennessee
Active Roster
Offense
# Name Pos. Ht. Wt. Age Exp. College
62 Casey Wiegmann C 6'2" 285 35 14th Iowa
67 Kory Lichtensteiger C 6'3" 295 23 2nd Bowling Green St.
73 Chris Kuper G 6'4" 302 26 4th North Dakota
50 Ben Hamilton G/C 6'4" 290 31 9th Minnesota
78 Ryan Clady T 6'6" 325 22 2nd Boise State
74 Ryan Harris T 6'5" 300 24 3rd Notre Dame
71 Clint Oldenburg T 6'5" 300 25 2nd Colorado State
89 Daniel Graham TE 6'3" 257 30 8th Colorado
88 Tony Scheffler TE 6'5" 250 26 4th Western Michigan
81 Richard Quinn TE 6'4" 260 22 R North Carolina
15 Brandon Marshall WR 6'4" 230 24 4th Central Florida
19 Eddie Royal WR 5'10" 182 22 2nd Virginia Tech
14 Brandon Stokley WR 5'11" 192 32 11th S. Western-Louisiana
10 Jabar Gaffney WR 6'1" 200 28 8th Florida
16 Chad Jackson WR 6'1" 215 24 4th Florida
8 Kyle Orton QB 6'4" 216 26 5th Purdue
2 Chris Simms QB 6'4" 220 28 7th Texas
3 Tom Bradstater QB 6'5" 222 24 R Fresno State
27 Knowshon Moreno RB 5'11" 205 21 R Georgia
28 Correll Buckhalter RB 6'0" 217 30 9th Nebraska
32 Lamont Jordan RB 5'10" 230 30 9th Maryland
22 Peyton Hillis FB 6'1" 250 23 2nd Arkansas
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