NFL waiver wire rules and the Steelers’ position in the waiver order

With the NFL preseason nearing its conclusion, teams will have to begin the process of cutting players to be compliant with the 53-man limit for the regular season. The Steelers themselves just played their final preseason game and will need to make some tough decisions by the cutdown deadline this Sunday, August 30, by 6 PM EST.

As Pittsburgh gets one step closer to the regular season, they enter the year at plus-money odds to make the postseason at +154, per FanDuel Sportsbook.

The flurry of transactions

won’t stop after initial cuts, though. Every year, after teams announce who they’ve released, there is a waiver process that allows teams to claim certain players released by other organizations.

Which players are eligible for these claims? When must claims be made? And how does the NFL decide the waiver order? We’ve got the answers for you.

When is the waiver deadline?

Once the 53-man roster deadline arrives, teams will have until 1 PM EST the next day — August 31 this year — to file their claims. The NFL will review those claims and then announce which claims were successful shortly after the deadline.

Once those have been announced, teams will officially be able to start filling their practice squads.

Which players can go on waivers?

The NFL ecosystem contains a great many players. During the preseason, teams are allowed up to 90 players on their rosters at a time, which works out to 2,880 players. But once cutdowns occur, just 1,696 remain, meaning 1,184 are suddenly up for grabs for teams to add if they wish.

Some of those players will head to the waiver wire, but others won’t. To determine which players are which, the NFL sorts the players into two categories: players who are vested and players who are not.

A vested player is one who has been credited with four or more seasons of NFL experience. To be credited for an NFL season, a player must have been on the active, inactive, IR, or PUP roster for three or more regular-season or postseason games. A player can also be credited for a season if they receive an injury settlement or grievance for the equivalent of three or more regular-season games. Note that a credited season is different fromaccrued seasons, which determine what type of free agent a player is.

Vested players do not go onto waivers and are free to sign with any team at any time, between the day after the Super Bowl and the NFL trade deadline. They are subject to waivers in the period after the deadline through the Super Bowl.

Non-vested players, or players with three or fewer credited seasons, are subject to waivers. If these players go unclaimed, they are free to negotiate with teams as free agents.

How does the NFL determine waiver wire priority?

Through the first three weeks of the NFL season, the waiver reorder follows the order of that season’s draft. Trades in the draft are ignored for this process, so, for example, the Bengals — who traded out of the 10th spot — would still be 10th in waiver priority. That means the Steelers will be 21st in waiver priority.

It’s also important to note that the NFL doesn’t have a rolling waiver system like readers who play fantasy football might be familiar with. In fantasy football, a successful claim typically moves a team down in waiver priority so they can’t hog all the waiver claims. However, in the NFL, a team in the top priority gets as many of their claims as they want. If that team filed 53 claims, they’d get all 53 if they wanted them. Obviously, no organization is going to go to that extreme, which is why teams are allowed to prioritize and add specifications to these claims. Using our example, a team could file 53 claims, number those claims in priority 1-53, and say something along the lines of “we only want two receivers and a cornerback,” which would cancel all their other claims once their specifications have been met.

What’s the current waiver order?

1. Las Vegas Raiders
2. New York Jets
3. Arizona Cardinals
4. Tennessee Titans
5. New York Giants
6. Cleveland Browns
7. Washington Commanders
8. New Orleans Saints
9. Kansas City Chiefs
10. Cincinnati Bengals
11. Miami Dolphins
12. Dallas Cowboys
13. Atlanta Falcons
14. Baltimore Ravens
15. Tampa Bay Buccaneers
16. Indianapolis Colts
17. Detroit Lions
18. Minnesota Vikings
19. Carolina Panthers
20. Green Bay Packers
21. Pittsburgh Steelers
22. Los Angeles Chargers
23. Philadelphia Eagles
24. Jacksonville Jaguars
25. Chicago Bears
26. Buffalo Bills
27. San Francisco 49ers
28. Houston Texans
29. Los Angeles Rams
30. Denver Broncos
31. New England Patriots
32. Seattle Seahawks