Cut-down day by the numbers … We have had a chance to really pour over the numbers from this week’s cut-down roster transactions and there are a couple of interesting observations to be made. First, pretty much as usual, the large majority of drafted players survived this week’s roster reductions. Indeed, only 18 players – just 7% of the total – selected at the 2025 draft were released by their respective clubs prior to the deadline. In fact, that was down somewhat from 2024 when 24 draftees were released prior to the deadline and well below figures from the middle of the previous decade when 30-40 picks did not make their team’s initial 53-man roster on an annual basis. This year’s total, though, is more in line with earlier this decade when the figures were 16 in 2023 and 17 in 2022, by far the lowest totals since the league went to a 7-round draft back in 1994.
At the same time, all the drafted players who were released earlier this week had been selected in the late rounds. Indeed, no one selected in the first four rounds this past April was has been released to date with the earliest players cut coming from the 5th round. In particular, former LSU DE Bradyn Swinson who was selected 146th overall by New England in this year’s 5th round was the earliest pick released, while the LA Rams also released a 5th rounder in former Mississippi LB Chris Paul who had been taken with the 172 pick. The rest of the players released were from the final two rounds including 6 from the 6th round and 10 from the 7th. Even in those final two rounds, though, the released players made up a minority of the players selected in those rounds: just 15% of 6th round picks and 25% of 7th rounders.
As well, more than half of the league’s 32 teams – 19 in total – did not cut any of their 2025 draftees prior to the deadline, although close to half those teams did place at least one of their picks on a reserve list such as injured reserve (IR), non-football injury (NFI) or physically unable to perform (PUP). In fact, just 5 teams – Las Vegas, New England, Seattle, Philadelphia, and the LA Chargers accounted for over half of all those 2025 draft picks released prior to the deadline as each cut a couple of picks.
Perhaps the most interesting observation from this week’s roster manipulations was the fact that unusually large number of 2025 draftees were placed on one of the reserve lists; in fact, more picks – 25 – were placed on either IR, NFI or PUP than were released this year which is a major change from previous years. In fact, as far as we can tell this is the first time since the league started releasing this kind of data that more drafted players were listed than were released.
