Preseason and training camp are in the rear-view mirror, and all that is left for the New England Patriots to do before the start of the regular season is put the finishing touches on their 53-man roster.
That process will be an ongoing one throughout the year, but Sunday will see a first major deadline. By 6 p.m. ET, they and the other 31 teams in the NFL need to be under the league-mandated 53-man roster limit. This means that more than 1,000 players will be out of a job — in some cases temporarily,
in others permanently — included several previously employed by the Patriots.
In order to stay on top of every move, please make sure to visit our Patriots roster cuts tracker as well as our regularly updated Patriots depth chart. As for cutdown day itself, here is what to expect this weekend, and what all of that means for New England.
How do NFL roster cuts work?
The Patriots can reduce the number of players on their active roster in multiple ways. The most straight-forward of which is simply cutting a player to remove him from the active roster. However, as with all things pro football, there is some nuance to the process.
The league, after all, makes a distinction between players getting waived or released based on their experience.
Waived: Players with less than four years of experience (i.e. having been on an active roster or injury list for a minimum of six weeks) will be placed on the waiver wire and therefore available to any other team. Based on the 2026 draft order, clubs can put in an indefinite number of claims on players as long as roster capacities and the salary cap are not violated.
As Super Bowl runners-up, the Patriots currently hold 31st priority meaning that their chances of success project to be lower than last year, when they were fourth.
Teams have until Monday, Aug. 31 at 1 p.m. ET to submit claims and then another hour to add any pickups to their 53-man rosters. This means that spots on the active team need to either be open or created for any waiver claim to join because those claims cannot be rejected. If a player clears waivers unclaimed, he enters free agency just like vested veterans do. A player would then be free to sign with any team’s active roster or practice squad, including his original one.
Additionally, teams can waive players with an injury designation. If they go unclaimed, they would automatically revert to a team’s injured reserve list — a process the Patriots are quite familiar with, having employed it on rookie running back Myles Montgomery earlier during the summer.
Released: As opposed to the players headed for waivers, so-called vested veterans have four or more years of service under their respective belts. They will get released and hit free agency right away, meaning that they are eligible to negotiate with any team without first having to pass through the waiver wire.
How does injured reserve work?
To reduce the number of players under contract, teams can also place them on one of the reserve lists available. Among them is injured reserve (IR), which is used on players that, as the name suggests, have suffered an injury and will be out for an extended period of time. Players will need to miss at least four games when sent to IR.
Up until 2023, any player moved there before 4:01 p.m. ET on the second post-cutdown day would have been ineligible to be reactivated later during the season. The NFL, however, changed those rules in 2024.
As a result, teams can now reactivate up to two players sent to IR on the final day of roster cuts (i.e. Sunday before 6 p.m. ET). If New England, for example, moves up to two of its currently-injured players such as offensive lineman Ben Brown or linebacker Khalil Jacobs there and designates them for return, they would not count against the initial 53-man roster limit but still be permitted to come back after the first four weeks of the season. At that point, follow-up moves to create space on the 53-man team will be necessary.
Overall, clubs are allowed to bring eight players back from IR during the season. Like those moved there on the day of final cuts, they will have to sit out a minimum of four games before being allowed to return to the 53-man roster. A player cannot go through this process more than twice a year.
Players not designated to return ahead of the 4 p.m. ET deadline on Tuesday, or already sent to IR at an earlier point this year, are out for the season. In order for them to return to an active roster at a future point, they would have to be cut from IR with an injury settlement, something the Patriots did with running back Terrell Jennings and interior offensive lineman Andrew Rupcich earlier in training camp. Once the agreed-upon settlement period ends, they are eligible to sign with any team or, three weeks after that, return to their original one.
How do PUP and NFI work?
Besides sending players to injured reserve, teams can also move them to the physically unable to perform (PUP) or non-football injury/illness (NFI) lists. There is a caveat, though: they already have to be on those lists come cutdown day to actually be sent there; players typically are moved to PUP or NFI at the start of training camp but players cannot join either retroactively.
Currently, only two Patriots are on those lists:
- ED Harold Landry (active/PUP)
- S Brenden Schooler (active/NFI)
What is the difference between those two? In the most basic of terms, it all comes down to the origin of the injury necessitating a move to one of the lists in the first place.
If it happened at the team’s facility or during an NFL game, a player can be sent to PUP. If the injury happened in college or outside of team supervision, NFI is the place to go.
The main difference from a functional perspective, however, is player compensation. While players on PUP are entitled to their salary, those on NFI are not. Teams can still elect to pay them their contractually agreed-upon base salary, but the CBA allows them to renegotiate a different number.
If a player starts training camp on either list, their status — as seen above — will be set to “active,” which means that they count against the roster limit A team then has two options: either remove them from the list and send them to the 53-man team ahead of the roster cutdown deadline, or keep them on PUP or NFI and flip the switch to “reserve” status. At that point, they would have to sit out at least four games before being allowed to re-join the club.
A player is ineligible to be moved back to PUP or NFI once they have participated in practice or played in a game. Any longer-term follow-up injuries would require a move to injured reserve.
How else can a roster be reduced?
Besides the methods mentioned above, teams also have a handful of other tools at their disposal, all of them pretty self-explanatory.
Reserve/retired: If a player retires, he will be moved there and no longer count against the roster limit. A team retains his rights for however long he is on that list and contractually bound to the team.
Reserve/suspended or Commissioner’s exempt list: Both lists deal with players potentially facing league discipline or are in legal limbo. The first is relevant for all types of infractions as classified by the NFL, the latter can be used by commissioner Roger Goodell’s to keep players from participating in team activities if there are ongoing investigations or other matters possible impacting their status.
Trade: Not much to explain here. Teams could decide to trade players to get them off the team. Obviously, player-for-player moves or simply acquiring a player via trade in exchange for a draft pick also is an option. Neither of those scenarios would reduce the roster count, though.
What does this mean for the Patriots?
By using the methods explained above, the Patriots and the rest of the NFL will have to bring their active rosters under the 53-player limit by Sunday, 6 p.m. ET. As of Saturday morning, New England still carries a full 91 players on its team, including roster-exempt offensive tackle Lorenz Metz.
Metz, a participant in the NFL’s International Player Pathway Program, will have to be either officially make the 53-man roster or be removed via one of the methods outlined above.
Of course, any and all transactions over the coming days may be reported ahead of the 6 p.m. ET deadline on Sunday; teams also could wait significantly longer before making any moves public. Again, we encourage you to follow our Patriots roster cuts tracker to stay on top of all the latest developments.
Once roster cutdowns are over, the scramble for talent begins. As noted above, clubs have until 1 p.m. ET on Monday to put waiver claims in to acquire non-vested players. If they are awarded a player, they have one hour to make room for him on their active 53-man roster. For more on the waiver wire process, please click here.
Upon “receipt of the subsequent personnel notice,” teams can also start building their practice squads. Up to 16 players can be signed with six of those spots available for players regardless of their experience in the NFL.
A little bit further down the line lies the end of the NFL’s Top 51 rule. All contracts on the 53-man roster, plus those on practice squads and injured reserve, will then start counting against the salary cap throughout the regular season.
Have the Patriots made some moves?
As noted above, New England have not made any moves so far. They will be coming as early as Saturday, however. In order not to get lost amid all the action — one final time — please make sure to bookmark and regularly visit our Patriots roster cuts tracker.
