Roster deadline looms for Kansas City Chiefs on Saturday

The Kansas City Chiefs must submit their final roster cuts by Saturday.

The Kansas City Chiefs have just under a week left of sifting and sorting, analyzing and observing, ranking and reasoning to do. That’s because active rosters in the NFL are due by Saturday, September 5 at 3:00 p.m. Arrowhead Time, a date that signifies the end of the line for hundreds of players around the league each year.

A bit of the damage this season has already been done. Typically rosters are at 90 players at this point—even just one week before roster cuts are due—but due to the COVID-19 pandemic, teams were only allowed to have 80 players by mid-August and many teams cut down their ranks well before then to match the total. The Chiefs did just that in late July, which allowed for better social distancing in locker rooms and the weight room as well as other team facilities. This means 320 players were already cut loose a while back.

The good news this year is that practice squads have been increased from 10 to 16, which means several players who would have been cast aside will at least find a home there. While it’s not a spot on the active roster, it’s a way for a player to stay in front of the eyes of a coaching staff and to continue to develop their skill set and mental understanding of a team’s respective scheme.

Remember that while the number 55 has been floated as the new roster size, the reality is that two of those spots are saved for practice squad call-ups. The real number remains at 53 players on each team’s active roster, even at this point, so the Chiefs (along with every other team) will release 27 players in the next five days. Fortunately, up to 16 of those same players can return via the practice squad.

At the very least, 11 players will be completely out of a job in a week along with others cut loose because of new players that general manager Brett Veach will want to bring in. It’s a big week in the NFL for a lot of players, one that features dreams coming true and other journeys coming to an end.