9 NFL Roster Cuts That Teams Will Regret
Tuesday was a rough day for a lot of NFL players. With the league now cutting from 90 players to 53 in one fell swoop, over 1,100 players were told they were no longer part of their team's plans, at least on the active roster.
Now, for a great many of those players, the writing was on the wall. And many of them will wind up on practice squads, either with the team they were already playing for or another organization.
As is the case every year, though, there were also surprise cuts. Maybe it was just a numbers game, a matter of shaving cap space or releasing aging veterans to make room for younger (and cheaper) replacements.
Whatever the reason, cutdown day in 2023 brought some surprises. Most will find work elsewhere fairly quickly, but there's also a chance the teams who cut them will develop "releaser's remorse" later in the season and wish they could have done things differently.
QB Colt McCoy
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If someone out there understands what the Arizona Cardinals are doing as Week 1 nears, please explain it to me.
For most of the offseason, the belief was that veteran quarterback Colt McCoy would start for the Redbirds while Kyler Murray rehabbed his ACL tear. Instead, he was released this week.
The 36-year-old wasn't great in six starts for Arizona over the past two years, but he was OK, leading the team to three wins.
Head coach Jonathan Gannon told reporters that after the team acquired Joshua Dobbs from the Cleveland Browns, the organization decided that Dobbs or rookie Clayton Tune gives the Cardinals the best chance of competing while Murray is out.
"Just like with every decision, you look at the full body of work. [We] Evaluate our guys, production goes into that and felt like it was the best decision for the team to move forward with the guys that we have in the room to help win us a football game," said Gannon,
However, given that Dobbs and Tune have combined for 85 pass attempts (all Dobbs), two starts and zero wins, releasing McCoy makes little sense...unless Arizona's goal is to become the front-runner to land the No. 1 overall pick in the 2024 NFL draft.
OL Alex Leatherwood
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Alex Leatherwood will forever carry the label of draft bust with him. Since being selected 17th overall in 2021 by the Las Vegas Raiders, he has been mostly awful.
As a rookie, Leatherwood committed 14 penalties and allowed eight sacks in Vegas, per PFF. By 2022, the Raiders threw in the towel.
The Chicago Bears claimed Leatherwood off waivers, and Bears then-general manager Ryan Poles told reporters that the Alabama product was getting a clean slate in the Windy City.
"Forget the draft pick thing," he said. "That's over. So, let's start from the ground floor."
After one season in which Leatherwood played sparingly at guard (and again struggled), the Bears became the second team to throw in the towel on the 24-year-old, releasing him despite owing him over $4.5 million in guaranteed money.
It's a puzzling move for a couple of reasons.
The first is that while Leatherwood's first two seasons admittedly haven't impressed, an argument can be made that it's not entirely his fault. He was miscast as a tackle in Las Vegas and hasn't really had a chance to show what he might be capable of as a guard.
The second reason is the state of the offensive line in Chicago, which is not good. Jacob Camenker of the Sporting News ranked the Bears' offensive line 20th in the league, and that line has already been hit by injuries.
The Bears just don't impress as a team that can afford to hemorrhage offensive linemen, especially when it costs them upward of $5 million in cap space to do it.
DT Raequan Williams
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Raequan Williams is hardly a household name. After going undrafted in 2020, he has spent time with three teams and hasn't seen game action since 2021. He has one career sack.
After an impressive training camp, though, the general belief in Charlotte was that Williams had earned a spot on the 53-man roster, especially after the team released Marquan McCall.
But Williams couldn't escape "The Turk," and that left Anthony Rizzuti of Panthers Wire scratching his head:
"Williams, who felt like the team's biggest riser of the summer, seemed much closer to grabbing a prime opportunity than a pink slip. Following last week's departure of nose tackle Marquan McCall (another relatively shocking decision), the 6-foot-4, 305-pounder felt like a shoo-in—and perhaps even a starter—given his strong training camp and disruptive preseason outings."
The Panthers don't have a ton of depth on the interior of the defensive line behind starters Derrick Brown and Shy Tuttle, and cutting one of the most impressive performers at the position in camp is a move that could come back to bite Frank Reich.
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QB P.J. Walker
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And we're back to Chicago.
To be fair, quarterback P.J. Walker didn't play especially well in the preseason. He struggled in camp, and by the time he played with the scrubs in the preseason finale, even he conceded he was aware that his grasp on a roster spot was not secure:
"I ain't a fool. I can read the room. I know what it is. It's a business, and if you ain't performing, you ain't going to be able to play. So, for me it's just go out there, perform at a high level or you don't play. That's what it is."
Just like with the aforementioned Leatherwood, it's something of a curious decision.
Partly, that's because just like with Leatherwood, the Bears will still be paying Walker a decent amount of money this year—his two-year pact included $2 million in guarantees.
It also leaves the Bears precariously thin behind Justin Fields. The backup quarterback will now ostensibly be rookie Tyler Bagent, who was undrafted coming out of Division II Shepherd.
The Bears also waived journeyman Nathan Peterman, so if Fields did get hurt, they would be in big trouble.
Say what you will about Walker's summer, but he at least has seven NFL starts under his belt, including five with the Carolina Panthers in 2022.
Given the state of Chicago's offensive line, having a backup quarterback who has attempted an NFL pass probably wasn't a bad idea.
OG Alex Bars
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After starting 14 games at right guard for the Raiders in 2022, Alex Bars didn't enter training camp believing he was fighting for a roster spot.
While addressing reporters at the start of August, the 27-year-old sounded like a player who expected to play a big role again in 2023:
"I mean, every training camp is an opportunity to get better, improve on the things that you didn't do as well as you wanted to last year and improve as training camp goes on. So, I'm not looking through those lenses as much as every training camp, just trying to get better and better and better."
A lot can change in a few weeks, though, and after losing his starting spot to Greg Van Roten, Bars went from 2022 starter to looking for work.
In fairness to the Raiders, cutdown day is always a numbers game; teams can only keep so many players at a given position.
However, Bars is not an end-of-the bench player who barely saw the field last season. He played over 850 snaps for the Raiders in 2022. He wasn't great (five sacks allowed, per PFF), but he could have been an experienced depth piece at least.
And given how bad the Raiders' offensive line is, the team can use all of those it can get.
CB Joejuan Williams
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Cornerback Joejuan Williams never lived up to his second-round billing while with the New England Patriots.
However, after signing with the Minnesota Vikings in free agency, the 25-year-old told reporters that he was in the perfect place to get his career back on track:
"I'm very excited. I'm very thankful and blessed for the opportunity. The overall history here has been amazing, just from the greats who came through this organization. Even the ties with coach Flores from the Patriots organization, definitely some similarities there. We had great conversations, and I'm really looking forward to playing for him."
Less than six months later, Williams' tenure with the Vikings is over.
It was quite the fall from grace for the 6'3", 212-pounder, who spent time with the first-team defense in camp after three seasons with the Patriots. But he was passed on the depth chart by rookie Mekhi Blackmon and wound up on the outside looking in.
Williams may never have lived up to the potential that made him a Day 2 pick, but there isn't a team in the NFL that needs help on the back end of the defense more than the Vikings and their NFC-worst pass defense from a year ago.
Rookie corners have been known to struggle acclimating to the NFL. If Blackmon does, it may not be long until Brian Flores starts missing a familiar face.
CB Desmond King
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When Jimmie Ward signed with the Houston Texans in free agency, he told reporters that one of the reasons he was intrigued by joining the Houston secondary was the play of veteran slot corner Desmond King.
"They really impressed me when I got here," Ward said. "Des' King in the nickel—like, the dude is so athletic. I think he wears like a three-X glove. I knew he was good."
Ward will be out there when the Texans open the regular season against the Baltimore Ravens, but King was surprisingly let go by the team after two seasons.
The 28-year-old became expendable in the eyes of the Texans after the offseason acquisitions of players like Ward, who can man the slot, and Shaquill Griffin. But it was still something of an upset to see him cut loose.
King might not be the player he was when he made the All-Pro team in 2018 as a kick returner and corner with the Los Angeles Chargers. But he was still a capable and versatile cornerback who played over 900 snaps and recorded at least 89 total tackles each of the past two seasons.
The Texans could come to miss that veteran presence. But King didn't take long to land on his feet and reportedly has already found a new home with the Pittsburgh Steelers.
WR David Moore
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Less than a month ago, veteran wide receiver David Moore was receiving praise from new Tampa Bay Buccaneers offensive coordinator Dave Canales:
"Anytime someone is leaning on him, balls in the air, he really doesn't get affected cause he's so strong," he said. "He's special with the ball so a lot of perimeter screens and jet sweep type of things on the perimeter, he can really make yards in different ways as well."
Earlier this week, Moore got a pink slip.
On the surface, releasing the 28-year-old might seem much ado about nothing. In five professional seasons, he has never caught more than 35 passes or had 450 receiving yards.
However, Moore does have a pair of seasons in Seattle with five or more touchdown passes. He also has something that is now sorely lacking in Tampa: experience.
The Bucs elected to keep just five wide receivers on the 53-man roster, and once you get past Mike Evans and Chris Godwin, it's a who's who of "Who?"
Trey Palmer, Rakim Jarrett and Deven Thompkins have combined for five career receptions in the NFL—all by Thompkins.
If Evans or Godwin misses time, that lack of experience could become a major issue.
CB Bradley Roby
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There may not have been a more surprising move on cutdown Tuesday than the release of veteran cornerback Bradley Roby.
There had been nothing to indicate that the 31-year-old's roster spot with the New Orleans Saints was in jeopardy, and he certainly appeared caught off-guard by the news:
However, upon further review there were some signs that his days in New Orleans could be numbered.
In Marshon Lattimore, Paulson Adebo and Alontae Taylor, the Saints have a quality trio of cornerbacks. Roby's release was as much about his cap hit as his performance—he made 10 starts last season for the Saints and allowed a passer rating against of less than 80.
Roby may be the wrong side of 30, but he's still a quality player with a Super Bowl win on his professional resume who will generate interest on the open market.
The problem for the Saints is that while Taylor showed promise as a rookie, he's still an unproven commodity at the NFL level. Cornerback is one of the positions where NFL teams can never have too much depth.
All it will take is one injury for Saints head coach Dennis Allen to wish that Roby was still in the Big Easy.
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