Record number of picks survive the Turk … Perhaps we’ll get a clearer picture whether we are seeing a trend or not, but for now, at least according to our unofficial numbers, a record of players selected at the 2022 draft at least made their team’s initial 53-man roster was the dust had settled from yesterday’s cut-down process. Indeed, just 17 players selected this past spring were released prior to the deadline. That compares with 25 in both 2021 and 2020 and the previous record low of 24 in 2019. And those figures for the past three years were been pretty much the lowest since the league went to a 7-round draft back in 1994. as recently as 2017, for example, 30 draft picks did not make their team’s initial 53-man roster, while the figures were 33 in 2015 and 36 in 2014.
In fact, for the first time in history, more rookie picks actually ended up on reserve list like injured reserve, the Non-football injury list and the Physically-unable-to-perform list. This year, for example, 20 players selected at this year’s draft ended up one one of those lists versus the 17 that were released. In contrast, just last year, 25 were released compared with 15 who were placed on on one of the reserve lists.
The other thing that kind of jumps out about this year’s draft class is that not one player selected within the first 5 rounds was released prior to yesterday’s deadline. Not one. In comparison, in 2021, 5 5th rounders did not make their opening roster as did one from the 4th. Indeed, it wasn’t all that unusual in the past for the highest player released to come as early as somewhere on the second day. That said, several players taken in the early were placed on a reserve list including WR Jameson Williams who was taken 12th overall by Detroit, but he of course was injured coming into the process. Still players taken in the later rounds did make up the majority of 2022 picks to be listed with 15 of the 20 coming in either the 5th, 6th or 7th rounds.
Overall, exactly half (16) of the league’s 32 teams did not release any of their 2022 draft picks, although some of those obviously did place at least one pick on a reserve list. Of the teams that ended up keeping all their picks on the active roster, Green Bay led the way keeping all 11 of their 2022 picks on the active roster. Meanwhile, Chicago had ten, Washington and the LA Chargers had 8 each, the NY Jets had 7, Cincinnati and Las Vegas had 6 each and Philadelphia 5. At the same time, Buffalo was the only team in the league to release more than one 2022 pick as the Bills cut both OT Luke Tenuta and P Matt Araiza, a pair of 6th rounders. Of course there’s a caveat with Araiza as he had actually made the team and was only released when it became known he was being sued along with several other former college teammates for sexual assault.
