Report: Cutting rosters to 80 players won’t happen until just before padded practices begin

ESPN’s Chris Mortensen is reporting the proposed roster trim down to 80 players will not happen before the start of training camp, but rather just before padded practices begin.

With the current proposal for the acclamation period to begin 2020 training camp, players would go through a Covid testing and virtual meeting phase before moving into a strength and conditioning phase. Before teams even hold a padded practice, they would still progress to practice in shells which would be just helmets and shoulder pads.

If teams are not required to cut down their roster before actually seeing players at least doing drills, it should make the process much easier in selecting which 10 players will be cut. Although these players will not get a chance to show what they can do in the live competition, both the mental aspect and physical attributes of each player will make it much easier to judge if there’s at least some in-person activities before cuts must be made.