Cutdown day in the NFL is a tough one for many, but it’s seldom boring. Tuesday was no exception, with a slew of trades and some interesting player cuts as teams whittled their way to their initial 53-man rosters.
Amid all the chaos, a few interesting developments stood out. Here are my takeaways.
1) Trade activity on the upswing: When I was putting together my cut-and-trade candidates piece last week, it struck me how much trade activity has picked up in recent years.
I remember calling retired GM Ron Wolf one offseason several years ago and asking him why teams don’t make more trades. His short answer was that NFL teams were creatures of habit and generally risk-averse, although I’d add that changes to the Collective Bargaining Agreement over the years have helped usher in a new era of trade activity.
Granted, a lot of the deals we saw this week were of the minor variety -- players being swapped for late-round picks in more salary-driven maneuvers. But it also displays a new approach to roster building, one that has been swelling for years.
Why not get something, if you can, for a player you’re planning to cut? And likewise, for the cap-flexible teams acquiring players who might otherwise be subject to waivers (or free to visit other teams as a free agent), they can circumvent that process by executing a trade -- and oftentimes for a pittance.
August used to be all about the cuts and seldom about the trades. A generation ago, if trades did occur, they often were player for player -- and often bottom-of-the-roster players who would end up getting cut anyway. You know, moves like the infamous A.J. Jenkins-Jonathan Baldwin deal, a swap of failed former first-round picks, which was one of only eight trades made across the league in August 2013.
Now trades are happening more frequently and, seemingly, with more purpose. By the time we reach the end of this month, we should see a trade total in line with the activity of the last two years. There were 17 trades in each of the past two Augusts, and a whopping 23 in 2021.
This is a good thing for the NFL. It whips up fan interest. It helps teams better manage assets. And it opens up more possibilities for players out of options trying to find work when roster spots are at their most premium. So, let’s tip our hats to NFL front offices for their better salary-cap management and more creative roster-construction techniques.
2) Time to take Trent Williams leveraging 49ers more seriously: Since the spring there has been Brandon Aiyuk trade chatter, breathless updates of the stalemate between the wide receiver and the 49ers. One minute they’re trading him; the next he’s negotiating a new deal to stay. The next day, everything changes -- or nothing happens.
But why haven’t we paid one-quarter of the attention to what’s going on with Williams and the team? One reason might be that Williams and his camp have kept things more under wraps. But it still feels criminal that his holdout hasn’t been treated with the same level of urgency or attention.
If Williams is serious about holding out into the regular season -- and I have no reason to believe otherwise -- then the 49ers have a serious issue on their hands. Yes, they’ve played without Williams before, but the Niners are 3-6 with him out of the lineup the past four years.
The recent extensions signed by Penei Sewell, Christian Darrisaw and Tristan Wirfs have reset the OT market, with all three earning at least $26 million per year on average. Williams, who has been first-team All-Pro the past three seasons, is sitting at $23 million per year.
You can also see the 49ers’ side of it. Williams is 36, has missed an average of more than two games per season with the team and has three years remaining on his current deal. But this is also a team bent on getting back to the Super Bowl and winning it, so perhaps the 49ers need to make an exception here.
It wouldn’t stun me to see Williams pull a Chris Jones and sit out Week 1 against the Jets. Jones even flexed by sitting in a luxury box a year ago, looking down on the Chiefs’ home loss to the Lions. A few days later he had his contract adjusted and played the next week.
Keep an eye on this one.
3) QB class of 2022 being dismissed: Speaking of trades -- and cuts -- the 2022 NFL Draft’s quarterback class had a fourth member dealt this offseason when Malik Willis was sent to the Packers. Willis joined the two quarterbacks drafted ahead of him, first-rounder Kenny Pickett and third-rounder Desmond Ridder, along with fifth-rounder Sam Howell, to be moved via trade this offseason.
Then, in a semi-surprising move, the Cardinals released Ridder on Tuesday. In addition, third-rounder Matt Corral, fourth-rounder Bailey Zappe and seventh-rounder Chris Oladokun all were cut this week -- and for each of them, it was at least the second time they were released.
The only two draft picks still standing with their original teams: seventh-rounders Skylar Thompson (Dolphins) and Brock Purdy (49ers). Thompson has started a playoff game already, but Purdy is clearly the last best hope right now to keep the group’s reputation afloat until Pickett, Ridder, Willis or someone else gets a shot to start again.
Let’s hope they do. But right now, this ranks as one of the strangest QB classes we’ve seen in the modern era. Perhaps we now know why there was only one QB picked in the first 70 selections that year. I’d argue that Bears backup Tyson Bagent, who went undrafted in 2023, looks more proficient than most of the names on this list.
Some years, the draft gifts us quarterback riches. Other years, not so much. That’s just the nature of the operation.
4) Browns take 4-QB approach (for now): When the Browns whittled down their roster to 53 players, they opted to keep four QBs: Deshaun Watson, Jameis Winston, Tyler Huntley and Dorian Thompson-Robinson.
So, what does the Browns keeping four quarterbacks say about their team? My initial reaction is to be cautious and say something like, “not much,” because it feels like this is not the final result.
Asked if the Browns will have four QBs come the season opener on Sept. 8, head coach Kevin Stefanski said, “We’ll see.”
See what I mean?
The Browns have been spinning plates with all their recent and ongoing injuries at multiple positions, which made getting to 53 a lot trickier. Then on top of that, there’s the Watson situation, with his lingering health and performance questions.
Cutting D’Onta Foreman probably won’t hurt that much. Releasing Germain Ifedi might have been a bigger surprise, considering he was recently taking first-team reps at tackle with starters Jedrick Wills Jr. and Jack Conklin out, although perhaps that’s a positive sign for the veteran pair (Conklin returned to practice Tuesday). But keeping a fourth QB also meant they had to cut special-teams ace Justin Hardee Jr., one of those subtle moves we tend to forget about down the road.
Perhaps the Browns see the wisdom in a more careful, thorough approach to the QB depth chart than they took a year ago. Trading Joshua Dobbs (after not re-signing Jacoby Brissett) ended up hurting them when Watson went down, until Joe Flacco stepped in and led the team to the playoffs.
Stefanski can say the Browns have “four good quarterbacks,” as he did Tuesday, and maybe he believes it. But if the Browns can trade one of them, I think they will. If they can’t, though, they might end up regretting how they handled those cutdown decisions. It all comes back to Watson and whether he can bounce back, but the last thing they want is their key decisions coming back to bite them while being overcautious protecting the quarterback they’ve gone in all in on.
5) Youth movement in Denver: The Broncos have been hampered in recent draft classes, lacking first-round picks from the failed Russell Wilson trade, setting the franchise back to where it currently sits. Even with the strong late push last season, that’s now seven straight sub-.500 seasons in Denver.
But something tells me Sean Payton might get more -- much more -- from this year’s draft crop than he did from his 2023 rookie class.
The lacked a second-round pick, but the Broncos appear to have done well maximizing their draft assets from April. The big fish is first-round QB Bo Nix, who has earned the starting job and might be in the perfect place with Payton guiding him. Nix should be in the Offensive Rookie of the Year conversation if he leads Denver into the playoff race.
It appears he’ll receive help from two Day 3 receivers, Troy Franklin and Devaughn Vele. Franklin, who started slowly in camp, might need some time to ramp up before he’s a factor, but Vele has flashed some real ability and might crack the top four receiver spots early.
This development has allowed Denver to move on from Tim Patrick, just as the promise of fifth-round RB Audric Estimé gave the Broncos enough comfort to move on from veteran Samaje Perine.
The Broncos also appeared to receive defensive help in the draft, with Jonah Elliss and Kris Abrams-Draine possibly carving out early roles. Keep an eye on undrafted LB Levelle Bailey, too.
If Nix and two or three rookies can be major contributors, the Broncos might be able to build on what they did in the final 11 games in 2023, going 7-4 with a plus-15 point differential, looking far less like the club that started last season 1-5 and was outscored by 71 points.
6) Lions make a decision on QB2: There were a number of fascinating backup quarterback battles across the NFL this August, few more interesting than in Detroit.
The Lions drafted Hendon Hooker in 2023 knowing they were getting a redshirt type of player who was coming off an ACL tear. He spent last season on the non-football injury list while he prepared to battle for the backup job this season with Nate Sudfeld.
Hooker appeared to be the more talented of the two this preseason, although his performance was far from pristine, and Lions head coach Dan Campbell seemed to tip his hand when he previously said Sudfeld had the “upper hand” in that battle because of experience.
“You have to have conviction that whoever that guy is is going to be able to keep this ship afloat,” Campbell recently said.
But instead the Lions cut Sudfeld, making Hooker the immediate backup. If Jared Goff went down, the Lions’ Super Bowl hopes would rest on the backup’s shoulders.
Goff being something of an iron man, having started 35 straight games (38 if we count playoffs), helps. Sudfeld has taken nine regular-season snaps as a Lion. It also would make sense if he landed on Detroit’s practice squad. But with the revision of the QB roster rules, “emergency” QBs no longer can be called up as they were last year; they need to be on the 53-man roster on game days.
Hooker was a third-rounder for a reason, and there’s even a scenario where he could be the Lions’ starter in a few years when Goff’s cap number jumps to nearly $70 million. But for now, he remains a highly talented backup who’s one snap away from playing on a really good team.
7) Surprise cut in Houston: If your only exposure to the NFL last season was Weeks 9 and 10, Tuesday’s news of the Texans cutting WR Noah Brown would have hit you like a ton of bricks.
Brown was C.J. Stroud’s best target in those two games, catching a combined 13 passes for 325 yards and a touchdown, both of them Houston victories. But Brown wasn’t just some two-week wonder last season; he started seven games, finished fourth on the team in receiving yards and had another big performance in a late-season comeback against the Titans.
I figured Brown would make the roster, even as deep as the Texans are at receiver. Now he's a free agent.
Stefon Diggs, Nico Collins and Tank Dell are a strong top three, and John Metchie III and Xavier Hutchinson still have upside. Steven Sims, who had the punt-return TD at Baltimore in the playoffs, made the roster for his special-teams prowess.
But they also kept Robert Woods at a hefty cap number over Brown. Even with Woods’ veteran presence, I think I might have gone with Brown. He’ll have more options elsewhere, I think, than Woods would have had.
8) Recent kicker cuts stoke age-old draft debate: With the Packers parting ways with Anders Carlson and the Patriots waiving Chad Ryland, two of the three kickers drafted in 2023 are looking for new teams. Both struggled with their accuracy last season, and neither team could afford running the risk of a scattershot kicker this time around.
For the Packers, Carlson missed key field goal tries in surprise regular-season losses to the Broncos and Giants, not to mention the Divisional Round playoff loss to San Francisco. If the Packers fancy themselves a playoff team, a repeat of that wasn’t going to fly.
The Patriots have a million offensive worries, but the last thing a deeply flawed offense needs is a guy who can bomb an occasional 50-yarder but will miss the high-percentage ones, too.
Third-rounder Jake Moody is the last kicker standing from the 2023 draft class. He had a good rookie season with the 49ers, even with a late miss at Cleveland and at least one miss (XP or FG) in each of the three playoff games.
The only kicker drafted in 2022, fourth-rounder Cade York, was traded last week for a conditional seventh-rounder.
It once again raises the question of whether most kickers should be drafted in the first place. For every Moody (a top-100 pick, mind you) or Evan McPherson who proves himself worthy, it feels like there are more examples of kickers who don’t get it done with the team that drafts them. I’m not a kicker hater, I promise. I’m just a draft realist, and the facts are what they are.