NFL roster deadline: For some Eagles players, the end of August is the end | Bob Ford
Trimming an NFL roster to the 53-man limit is a business, and it's all business.
During a busy August, the Eagles front office brought 15 new players onto the bulging 90-man preseason roster. A few of the moves were made to add players with a legitimate chance of making the team – or to release players who clearly did not – but most were simply a means of getting through the month and its four tedious exhibition games while risking as little real capital as possible.
Ten of those 15 players didn’t make it past the first round of cuts, which was announced Friday, and two more were excised as the team got to the 53-man limit on Saturday afternoon. Safeties Johnathan Cyprien and Rudy Ford, along with quarterback Josh McCown, were the only August additions still on the roster at the end of the month.
The players who operate at the low end of the NFL pecking order understand how tenuous is their hold on what they hope will be a successful professional career. They might be disappointed when the bad news arrives, but rarely shocked.
Take Jason Thompson, for instance, and you are forgiven for not recollecting his part in the August drama that ended with Saturday’s final roster curtain. Thompson, who is a 25-year-old converted quarterback, was signed as a safety on Tuesday. Tre Sullivan, also a safety, was waived in the transaction, which was announced by text message from the team at 5:44 p.m.
Thompson, a 2017 undrafted free agent, had previously been with New England, Chicago, Seattle, Dallas, Tennessee, Green Bay, and, most recently, Atlanta. He has not played in a regular-season game. What he expected from his eighth stop is unknown, but barely 48 hours after signing, while wearing the No. 37 still warm from Sullivan’s back, Thompson played 51 snaps for the Eagles in the exhibition finale against the Jets.
He was credited with a tackle, two assists, and a forced fumble that occurred when he punched the football from the hands of New York tight end Eric Tomlinson at the end of a 24-yard completion thrown by quarterback Davis Webb. The ball was recovered out of bounds by linebacker Alex Singleton, a ruling that stood despite an Eagles challenge. On the next play, Webb, not taking advantage of his good luck, threw an interception to linebacker Chris Worley.
As you have probably guessed, by Saturday evening Thompson, Tomlinson, Webb, Singleton, and Worley were all unemployed.
The good things they did mattered as little as the bad. That’s because the exhibitions, and the enormity of the 90-man preseason rosters, for that matter, are a cynical bit of business, with most players just meat for the sausage grinder.
No one forces them into the bargain, though. It’s voluntary, and Jason Thompson, who was waived Friday, got two days of pay, some film, and another T-shirt for the collection. No one guaranteed him any more than that, and even the T-shirt might have been a bonus.
If Thompson’s departure was the smallest of surprises – smaller perhaps than the news he had even been on the team – farther up the food chain were more noteworthy departures.
The team got rid of three former draft picks, which is always a distasteful thing for an organization.
It is assumed quarterback Clayton Thorson, a fifth-round pick this year, will be retained for the practice squad, but not necessarily. The Eagles also moved past running backs Donnel Pumphrey, a fourth-round pick in 2017, and Wendell Smallwood, a fifth-round pick in 2016. They did keep oft-injured receiver Mack Hollins, a fourth-round pick in 2017, over Greg Ward, and maybe their relative draft history (Ward doesn’t have one) was the difference.
From the last four drafts, also fallen by the wayside have been Shelton Gibson, Elijah Qualls, Blake Countess, Alex McCalister, and Joe Walker. It’s not a huge number, eight misses already among 26 picks from 2016 to 2019, and all third-day selections, but nevertheless bears watching.
On the bright side of talent evaluation, two of the 11 undrafted free agents brought aboard in April, linebacker T.J. Edwards and guard Nate Herbig, made the team. That’s not bad.
Of course, barely making the team a week before the opener is a swaying rope bridge across a deep void. There are 31 other cut lists to examine and more than a few players who will be interesting to the Eagles. A spot or two might open up because of lingering injuries, but the team is short on tight ends, could use an experienced linebacker, and who knows what else is concerning the front office. The race has ended, but it isn’t official, so don’t rush the cashier window yet.
That’s because there are no promises made, and none to be broken. August in an NFL preseason camp is cruel. The first week of September can be worse. But the players will tell you that October in one’s own living room is the worst of all. That’s the sentence some of them received this weekend, along with a handshake, one last paycheck, and maybe that T-shirt stuffed into a duffel bag for the memory.