SouthernMan Posted August 31, 2015 Share Posted August 31, 2015 What is the NFL's rationale behind only allowing 47 players to dress on gameday? The teams are paying for 53 each game, right? Or another way to look at it - the teams have to pay 6 players full salary for 16 regular season games to not be available. Doesn't make any sense to me. There must be some logic to it. Anyone know? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DonInBuffalo Posted August 31, 2015 Share Posted August 31, 2015 Frequently some of those 6 players couldn't play or would be limited due to injuries. Limiting each team to 47 prevents one team from having an obvious advantage in those situations. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Best Player Available Posted August 31, 2015 Share Posted August 31, 2015 The NFL is cheap! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Malazan Posted August 31, 2015 Share Posted August 31, 2015 It's a conspiracy Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
boyst Posted August 31, 2015 Share Posted August 31, 2015 you know what they say, it's like silverware. 46 too few, 48 too many... 11 offense, 11 defense, 3 special team players, 1 backup QB = 26 That least 20 positions to fill, more or less 1 backup per position. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Clippers of Nfl Posted August 31, 2015 Share Posted August 31, 2015 The NFL is cheap! The nfl is not cheap. Ralph is. Jk. Ps. You beat me to it!!!!!!!!!!!! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ed_Formerly_of_Roch Posted August 31, 2015 Share Posted August 31, 2015 I thought this thread was a riddle!! I may not be explaining this the best, but the rational is it helps teams (like Buffalo use to be) that aren't able to spend as much money as say the Cowboys due to revenue constraints. The logic is teams with deeper pockets could better afford to sign stars for the 47th thru 53rd roster spots which would widen the gap between talent on teams. A team that doesn't want/can't spend as much money can still have players that for 1 thru 47 are just as talented as the high rollers. The depth isn't as good on the lower salaried teams so this helps narrow the gap. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BobbyC81 Posted September 1, 2015 Share Posted September 1, 2015 What is the NFL's rationale behind only allowing 47 players to dress on gameday? The teams are paying for 53 each game, right? Or another way to look at it - the teams have to pay 6 players full salary for 16 regular season games to not be available. Doesn't make any sense to me. There must be some logic to it. Anyone know? I was wondering the same thing. All 25 players on an MLB roster are eligible to play. However, NBA rosters can be as high as 15 but only 13 can be active. NHL has rosters of 23 with 20 as active. So, only MLB teams can play their whole roster. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
UConn James Posted September 1, 2015 Share Posted September 1, 2015 In the era of sensitivity to concussions, the nature of the game, guys playing with injuries because the position is thin, and for the sake of logic, the NFL really ought to expand the game day roster. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jmsbills Posted September 1, 2015 Share Posted September 1, 2015 It what the NFL calls " competitive balance". I have no idea what that means - but that's the real reason. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tuco Posted September 1, 2015 Share Posted September 1, 2015 The extra 6 players is the NFL's version of in season disabled list. Long ago, in a galaxy far, far away (sorry), in a time when there were no salary caps and no practice squads, the rule was every team had a 47 man roster. That was it. If you got ready on game day and only had 44 healthy guys you played with 44 while the other team played with 45 or 47 or whatever they had. Except there was one other difference back then. Anybody who made the final 47 man roster could go on injured reserve and come back during the season and play. This led teams to stash players on IR. Many of them were young players who would be told to get "injured" in the last preseason game. These guys were promising but maybe not ready yet so teams would keep them on until the final rosters were set. Then teams would release old veterans they figured weren't going any place (for the Bills it was guys like Mike Lodish and Gale Gilbert), get the extra guys onto the 47 man roster, then put those guys on IR and re-sign the guys they had just cut. It was very common and every team did this. But with no salary cap some teams would do it with a lot more players than others. So along comes the salary cap and free agency and all this modern day stuff we have. The salary cap made it important to keep teams from stashing players like they had done. So the first thing they did was say anybody on injured reserve is gone for the year. That took care of that stashing practice but then teams were worried about only having 42-43 players or so available for games even though some guys were only out for a week or two. So they said, okay, we'll increase the rosters to 53 but each team can still only dress 47 on game day. That way teams can be flexible with their short term injuries but still should be able to field the same number of players on game day. Then they added practice squads so teams could keep younger players around and have them available if they got even further decimated by injuries. But the point is, the extra 6 guys are there to give roster flexibility especially for players who may only be out a week or two or four or whatever. If they started letting teams dress all 53, in no time there would be teams complaining because they only have 49 healthy guys while the other team has 53. Then they would do the same thing and say okay expand the roster to 60 and dress 53. It would be the same problem all over, not to mention the amount of salary cap would have to be completely renegotiated to cover the extra players. Would the owners pay out more or would the players take less? People are always saying the NFL needs a short term disabled list like baseball or something similar. The 53 man roster while dressing 47 is the NFL's version of that. It's there every week. It's very flexible and teams can use it however they want. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hapless Bills Fan Posted September 1, 2015 Share Posted September 1, 2015 What is the NFL's rationale behind only allowing 47 players to dress on gameday? The teams are paying for 53 each game, right? Or another way to look at it - the teams have to pay 6 players full salary for 16 regular season games to not be available. Doesn't make any sense to me. There must be some logic to it. Anyone know? LS, punter, kicker, plus 2 players per position (starter and backup) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nanker Posted September 1, 2015 Share Posted September 1, 2015 They only have so many clean uniforms to use every week. It's hard to do laundry in the NFL. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jwhit34 Posted September 1, 2015 Share Posted September 1, 2015 I think that the 47 active players was a big reason Fred Jackson was released. Similar to last year, they will probably only have 3 active on game day, and after McCoy my guess is that the other two would be K. Williams (#2 back and special teams) and Dixon (special teams, goal line and change up runner). So if Jackson isn't released, he's on the team but as long as the RBs are healthy he is inactive (healthy scratch) on Sunday. The PR nightmare of Fred in street clothes on Sundays week after week was probably perceived to be worse than taking the hit now and giving him a chance to land on another team (looks like Seattle). Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kelly the Dog Posted September 1, 2015 Share Posted September 1, 2015 Good post, Tuco. That is exactly the reason. Post more. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts