The New England Patriots entered Tuesday 23 players above the NFL roster limit of 53. In order to get to that number, the team of head coach Mike Vrabel ended up cutting 21 players while sending two more to injured reserve.
For a full rundown of the moves, please take a look at our Patriots roster cuts tracker . In order to find out what they mean for the team from a big-picture perspective, just keep on reading.
Cole Strange era over
In 2022, the Patriots made one of the more surprising draft picks of the Bill Belichick
era when they used the 29th overall pick in the first round on Cole Strange. The Chattanooga guard was considered a talented player, whose best traits included elite athleticism and impressive versatility. Nonetheless, he was widely seen as a possible third-round pick rather than a first-rounder.
The Patriots, who had to replace recently-departed Shaq Mason and Ted Karras, did not care; they saw something in Strange and decided to bring him into their new-look offense. Three years later, he is gone.
Strange was a polarizing player in New England from the day his name was called. And yes, ultimately he failed to live up to his draft status and his exit puts a disappointing bow on what was ultimately an underwhelming tenure. However, the circumstances also did him few favors — especially from his sophomore campaign on.
After starting all 17 games at left guard his rookie season and playing 94 percent of snaps along an offensive line coached by Matt Patricia, Strange was hampered by injuries in Year 2. Still, when actually healthy he began showing signs of a second-year leap and why New England invested a premium draft pick in him. However, his healthy eventually was his undoing: a major knee injury suffered in December 2023 that included a torn patellar tendon put a halt to his development.
Strange did manage to return to the field a year after going down, but he never reached the levels of play he so briefly showed in his second season. As a consequence, he has now been let go. An unceremonious end.
Status only gets you so far
Strange’s status as a former first-round pick did not save him from getting cut on Tuesday, and he is not the only player learning a similar lesson: draft status only gets you so far. Ask Brady Swinson, a fifth-round pick by the Patriots just earlier this year.
Swinson arrived in New England as a high-upside pass rushing prospect, and showed flashes of his talent throughout training camp. However, he never emerged past reserve status — in large part because of an undrafted free agent blocking his path: Elijah Ponder proved himself the more consistent player over the course of the summer, and a factor in the kicking game as well. As a result, the latter was kept over the former despite their difference in draft pedigree.
2024 draft class still alive
Leading into Tuesday, there was plenty of talk about the Patriots’ 2024 draft class and the disappointing results the team got out of it so far. In fact, there was speculation that at the end of the day only one player — third overall selection Drake Maye — would remain left standing.
Turns out, two others have joined him on the 53-man team: both third-round offensive lineman Caedan Wallace and fourth-round wide receiver Javon Baker have managed to survive cutdown day. That does not mean they will be major contributors in 2025, or indeed remain on the team through the season, but it was a positive development relative to the doom-and-gloom look at the 2024 class earlier in the week.
Even so, Mike Vrabel was not concerned about the state of that particular draft class, or any other for that matter.
“It’s hard to compete in this league,” he explained on Monday. “Wherever the roster shakes out at, it’s going to be hard to compete, whether we have 15 guys from the draft class or two or one or none. We’ll have a roster, and we’ll try to figure out the best way to win each and every week, however that is, with whoever we have, just like we’ve always done.”
Depth concerns
The Patriots reduced their roster to 53 players on Tuesday, but there is some imbalance on the team as far as the distribution of depth is concerned. Whereas the team has kept eight wide receiver, for example, it only has three running backs after cutting JaMycal Hasty and Terrell Jennings.
Likewise, there is a big question mark over the backup right guard spot. Cole Strange was seen as a candidate to fill it given his aforementioned versatility, but New England’s decision makers went with Ben Brown and Caedan Wallace as second-string interior O-line options — two players who have yet to line up at right guard in an NFL game. The only RG experience between them is Brown playing 33 preseason snaps in the spot during a tenure with the Cincinnati Bengals in 2022 and 2023.
The depth also remains somewhat unsettled at cornerback, where the Patriots waived three players — Miles Battle, Brandon Crossley and Kobee Minor — on Tuesday. As a result of those moves, only five CBs are left on the team, including currently-injured Christian Gonzalez.
More IR moves
Speaking of injured players, two of them were sent to injured reserve as part of Tuesday’s transactions: wide receiver Ja’Lynn Polk and linebacker Jahlani Tavai, with the latter of the two designated to return. While that means Tavai can be come back to the 53-man roster as soon as the first four games of the season are over, the moves also add more bodies to IR.
At the moment, New England’s injured reserve is set to stand at 10 players deep — second in the NFL behind only the San Francisco 49ers’ 11. Those 10 players look as follows:
- WR Ja’Lynn Polk
- RB Lan Larison
- RB Deneric Prince
- FB Brock Lampe
- OT Yasir Durant
- OL Layden Robinson*
- DT Isaiah Iton
- DT Jaquelin Roy
- LB Jahlani Tavai (IR-R)
- CB Marcellas Dial Jr.
While Layden Robinson’s status remains undetermined after he was waived with an injury designation on Sunday, the expectation is that he will ultimately also end up on IR.
Salary cap impact
Even though the NFL’s Top 51 list will remain in place for another week, the Patriots’ roster moves on Tuesday did have an impact on their salary cap. Whether it was players moving off the active team or both Polk and Tavai going to IR, the net impact was a cap space loss of around $6.04 million, according to Miguel Benzan.
New England probably is not overly worried about that number, though. The team still has $53.51 million to work with at the moment.
All eyes on waivers
Of the 21 players cut by the Patriots on Tuesday, all but two — running back JaMycal Hasty and safety Marcus Epps — are subject to waivers. This means that other teams can bring them aboard via the waiver claim process; they can put in claims in the draft order in hopes of adding as much talent as they please (i.e. as many players as they can fit onto their 53-man roster).
A majority of the players waived by New England will end up passing through waivers without receiving any interest. There are a handful of candidates, however, that could draw some interest, including the aforementioned Bradyn Swinson and kicker Parker Romo.
Based on draft status, Cole Strange also might fall into that category. However, it would not be a surprise if teams opted to forgo picking him and his $2.38 million salary up.
