Quote:
Originally Posted by DTLB58
According to Herm last week we are going to need to release 11 players just to get under the limit of 80 to go to River Falls.  |
Which is a very interesting development...here is a story from Peter King about it:
http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/200...25/mmqb/1.html
Big, big story. Don Banks covered it well two weeks ago, and you'll hear coaches moan about it when camp begins. Because teams are not allowed roster exemptions for players who played in NFL Europa or various other restricted lists, you'll see every team, in all likelihood, go to camp with fewer than 80 able-bodied players. (Players on the Physically Unable to Perform List count against the 80-man limit.) So if you have five or six players unable to practice because they're returning from offseason surgery or from various rehab stints, you'll have a comparatively bare-bones team starting training camp.
Polian thinks few teams, if any, will have two-a-day practices this summer on consecutive days. Many teams have phased out back-to-back two-a-days, but a few teams still like to run them early in camp. My theory is that, on average, each team will have one fewer player at almost every position group practicing this summer -- and that eight- and 10-year veterans are going to be ticked off that they're having to run so many extra repetitions in camp, leading to an increased chance of injury. "We have the fifth preseason game this year, the Hall of Fame game,'' Polian said on Sirius. "Had we known we'd have had 80-man rosters, we never would have agreed to play that game.''
I've felt all along, and still do, that owners are going to use this as a bargaining chip in negotiations with players over the new CBA. But it's going to be kind of a hollow chip. Owners aren't going to increase regular-season rosters if they agreed to, say, an 85-man roster limit for training camp. Owners would simply be allowing more players to attend training camp. So while owners won't be able to say they're adding, say, 170 jobs to the NFL workforce, the NFLPA would be able to tells its rank-and-file that 170 more players would get to go to camp for a chance to win a job.