Dallas City News

The 53-man roster cut deadline is on Tuesday, Aug. 28, when all 32 teams must trim their roster from 90 to 53 players by 4 p.m. EST.

With two days left until the cutdown, today we’ll examine what the Cowboys’ final 53-man roster could look like based on what we’ve seen so far in training camp and in the preseason. To do that, we’re going to look at four separate projections. One from Todd Archer of ESPN Dallas, another one from Saad Youssuf of The Athletic, one from Garrett Podell of CBSSports, one from John Owning of PFF, and a final one from our own Dan Rogers of BloggingTheBoys.

Both Podell and Owning published their projections before news of Daron Bland’s injury broke on Saturday. Podell had 54 players on his roster, so I removed Bland to get to the requisite 53 players. On Owning’s projection, I made an ‘executive decision’ and replaced Bland with Kemon Hall, a player Owning has been high on.

All projections are combined in the tables below. We published similar roster projection summaries prior to training camp and again after the first preseason game. It’s interesting to contrast and compare the current projections with those earlier iterations, which is why the table is color-coded accordingly:

GREEN: players that have improved their stock

YELLOW: players whose spots don’t appear to be secure yet

RED: players that dropped off the projections over the course of the preseason

There’s been an update to the IR rule that impacts the initial 53-man rosters. Teams can designate two players at the final cut down as “IR to return,” no longer requiring them to be on roster for a day. For the Cowboys, Daron Bland and Chuma Edoga likely fall into that category.

Other changes of note:

• At running back, Elliott, Dowdle, and Luepke look like locks. Which player the Cowboys keep as the fourth guy probably comes down to the question of which Cowboys running back is mostly likely to be poached off waivers. The answer, of course, is “none of them.”
• At tight end, Brevyn Spann-Ford and Princeton Fant briefly looked like they could be the fourth guy. Time has run out for Peyton Hendershot.
• Ryan Flournoy was limited with an injury early in camp, but he now looks like a lock for that final WR spot.
• Rookie OL Nate Thomas is not making the 53, and it might get tight for Matt Waletzko and Josh Ball as well, though either might be trade candidates, just like the surplus players at TE.
• On the defensive line, the Cowboys brought in Carl Lawson, Jordan Phillips, and Linval Joseph, which likely spelled the end of 53-man ambitions for Al-Quadin Muhammad, Viliami Fehoko, and rookie Justin Rogers.
• At linebacker, Willie Harvey was a unanimous pick earlier, but the Cowboys may have more quality depth here than previously thought: Buddy Johnson and Nick Vigil are making a late push for a spot, and even Darius Harris could be a candidate for a spot.
• Eric Scott looked like a lock for the fifth CB spot for a long time, but he may have lost his spot to the biggest surprise of camp: Israel Mukuamu. Nobody had Mukuamu on their initial projections, perhaps because he was lost somewhere on the safety depth chart, but he played almost exclusively at corner this preseason, and he may have played himself into a roster spot.

So that’s where we stand with two days left before roster cuts. Where do you think the projections above got it wrong?