So we are at that time of year again where we are starting to speculate on the 53man roster. But the most important thing to consider is how many players at each position.
Well I went back through the roster last year. And looked at how many at each group they had last season. Most importantly at the end of last year when Hooker was activated and they carried 3 QBs.
Because I do believe they will carry 3 QBs on the 53 man. Because with the new rule change for 2024 does allow the emergency QB3 to come off the practice squad unlimited times, however it takes one of the 2 weekly elevations. So if you make 2 elevations before the game. You lose that privilege of the QB3. There for I believe they will carry 3qbs to allow them to use those 2 weekly elevations. But if they dont. Bring in a 10th OL.
So heres the average team from the last 8 games or so from last season, and what my projection is.
ST2 is all the players that rarely played on O/D but played A LOT of special teams. And I had to remove one in order to make room for the 9th OL. Keeping the starters and draft picks. Plus Skipper as the vet Tackle because I think we can all agree Manu and Sorsdal arnt good enough to be OT3.
So if you want to have more in one group you must cut from somewhere else.
And before you say “cut someone else from ST2” those guys played in over 50% of ST snaps last season. Which is very important for the roster and very important to BH and Company
Isn’t that what it was last year before they fixed it? I’m very confused by this, but I keep reading in multiple places that many teams would only carry 2 QBs this year. Why are they saying that?
It’s just so hard to predict the 53 man roster in May. Injuries are a given in training camp and preseason. I’m sure we will have guys on PUP and IR to start the season which opens up roster spots for healthy guys.
I wasn’t sure if I should post it here or the Brad Holmes over confident thread, but I do not agree with his plan to carry three long snappers on the active roster.
Bottom line:
It softens the 2023 Emergency QB rule that said the QB MUST be on the 53.
The emergency QB can be on the PS, but he counts toward your allowed 2 elevations.
I suspect there’ll be a 2025 or 2026 change to the rule. Let “emergency” be “emergency” and allow the QB to be a PS player who doesn’t count toward the active roster or the 2 elevation players.
Bringing the convo back to the roster make-up, I believe we’ll continue using those elevation spots for PS linemen.
I don’t think there is any way we carry 3QB’s on the 53man. One, Sudfeld’s guarantees mesh with him being a PS player. Two, in the first 10 weeks of the season, we only elevated 2 players twice. The unlimited elevations for an emergency QB (that we are vey likely not going to use) is huge reason for NOT carrying 3 QB’s. Also, the elevated players didn’t always play and if they did, they were usually special teamers.
While I believe you have a lot of this right (free pass for you on unforeseen camp injuries), I will disagree with your thought that we carry 3 qbs on the 53. I will stand by 2 plus 1 on the ps. I will even offer that I do not believe it will be Sudfeld. My gut says that the kid from GVSU sticks. Of course, I could be wrong in all of this.
I think this is a very good roster prediction.
Moseley is likely to start on P.U.P. Coming off a 2nd straight ACL everyone will want to be sure he is 100% before returning.
The area for variability is special teams and both Lines.
On the O-Line all are set except Awosika. This combination is guard heavy so they may decide to carry an extra OT or center and keep Awosika on the practice squad.
On the D-Line Levi is the only one I believe is at risk.
Only guaranteed spots on Special Teams (not counting the specialists) are JRM and Vaki.
Zylstra is competing with Agude and Betts for the big body coverage positions.
C. J. Moore, Brandon Joseph, Zonovan Knight, Jemar Jefferson, Dorsey, Vildor, and Alexander are competing for a couple of spots.
As the Den’s reigning 53-man prediction champion, I’m gonna say it’s way too early to try and guess who sticks out of camp. I think it will be a little easier this year than last, but there are some decisions that will still need to shake out.
Awosika at this point seems like a PS guy. I can’t see them keeping so many backup level guards. Just based on draft pedigree, you’d have to think Awosika is the guy they’d most want to expose to other teams.
And I honestly don’t see Zylstra taking a spot on ST. Both Wright and Mitchell played about 30-40% of special teams snaps. I don’t see that changing, barring injury, and I don’t know that Zylstra is a 4-phase guy in the way that someone like Pittman was. My guess would be that there is another LB that makes their way to the 53 based on ST usage of linebackers in the past.
Last season they had Cabinda, Pittman, and Nowasake.
Now typically only 2 were on the 53 roster at a time.
and that was on top of
JRM, Mitchell, Wright and Rodrego already being there
So Zylstra or like you said, betts ext to replace those 3 guys for the PS
Is he though? He’s never played a significant number of special teams snaps. I just don’t think you keep a 4th TE to play ST. That’s not really a 4-phase position. You’re not going to ask him to go out and tackle return guys - especially with the new rules where we should see more returns, and typically you only need 2 TEs on the kicking units for blocking (Wright and Mitchell).
I honestly think we already have our Cabinda replacement (in more ways than one) with Rodriguez. And CJ Moore is going to be a 4-phase ST guy along with JRM, who will eat up a lot of snaps missing from Pittman, and take over Personal Protector duties on Punt Team from Cabinda. But yeah, I just see an extra DE/LB like you mentioned, Betts or another LB like Agude being the ST spot over Zylstra. Just because most ST usage by TE comes in the blocking realm and I’m not sure you really need to have more than your TE2 or TE3 take those duties. And historically, the Dan/Brad regime has just always had a bunch of ST LBers (Chris Board, Josh Woods, Pittman, JRM, etc)
All that to say, I could be wrong, but I’d be super surprised to see Zylstra stick as a ST add. I think he has a better shot of beating Mitchell out for TE3 than he does winning a ST role.
