2020 Rook class survives Turk

September 5, 2020

Draft class survives Turk … One of the fears entering the 2020 season was the fact that because of training camp limitations it might be harder for late round picks this past April to earn a roster spot. Turns out those concerns may have been overstated as there was in fact very little difference in the number of this year’s draft picks who did not make their teams opening day roster compared with last year. By our unofficial count, 25 players selected in this past April’s draft didn’t make their original team’s 53-man roster. That’s just one more than last year when 24 players selected at the 2019 draft were released prior to the deadline. Indeed, the figures the last couple of years are pretty much the lowest since the league went to a 7-round draft back in 1994. The current numbers, for example, compare with 30 after the 2017 draft, while the figures were 33 in 2015 and 36 in 2014.

If there was a difference for this year’s draft class, it’s that significantly fewer players selected this past April ended up on reserve list. This year, for example, just ten draft picks were placed on either injured reserve, the non-football injury list or some other reserve list, roughly half the number in 2019 when the figure was 19.

Not surprisingly, most of the draft picks who were released this past weekend were selected in the later round picks. Indeed, 13 of the 25 drafted players who did not make their team’s opening day roster this weekend were selected in the 7th round alone, while 8 were taken in the 6th round, 3 in the 5th, and one in the third round. And that 3rd rounder comes with an asterix as former Kentucky QB-turned-WR/RB Lynn Bowden, who was selected with the 80th pick overall by Las Vegas, was actually traded to Miami earlier today. In fact, the earliest pick to be released prior to the deadline was PK Justin Rohrwasser, a 5th round pick – #159 – by New England. The two other 5th rounders who didn’t make their opening roster with their drafting team were DE Curtis Weaver, who was taken 164th overall by Miami and released a couple of weeks ago. Weaver though was claimed by Cleveland and ended up on injured reserve, and Detroit RB Jason Huntley.

Overall, almost half of the league’s 32 teams did not release any of their drafts picks. Of those, ten teams including Atlanta, Baltimore, Buffalo, Carolina, Cincinnati, Dallas, Houston, Jacksonville, Washington and the LA Chargers still have all their picks on the active roster, while Cleveland, Kansas City and the NY Jets didn’t cut any picks but did put at least one on a reserve list. On the other hand, Minnesota maybe paid a bit of a price for having too many picks as 5 of their leading 15 picks were released today, while a 6th went on IR. Meanwhile, New England and Tampa Bay were the only other teams to release more than one pick, although please don’t blame Tom Brady!