NFL Analysis
8/28/24
6 min read
Lost in the Shuffle: The Struggles of NFL Players Cut Before the 2024 Season
Now what?
Monday, you were an NFL player. Today, you aren’t, and the season starts next week.
This is the situation approximately 640 young men find themselves in after the transaction dust settles. They find themselves on the outside looking in when it comes to earning a paycheck from an NFL franchise.
At this point, there are more questions than answers.
Did I deserve to make it? Did I somehow get a raw deal from my former team, or was I just not good enough?
Those questions quickly lead to even harder questions.
Do I want to continue to pursue professional football? Where will I live? It’s a painful self-reflection for any person in this situation.
I’ve been there — twice, in fact. I was released during final cutdowns by Buffalo in 2005 and Cleveland in 2006. I didn’t think I deserved to be cut either time, but nobody does.
Going Back Home
My answer was to try to keep playing and to move back to Pennsylvania, where my wife and I are both from. That will be the most likely scenario for the more than 600 players hoping to catch on to at least a practice squad this season.
I was both fortunate and unfortunate to be married the two times I faced this scenario. The unfortunate part was that my failure negatively affected someone else’s life, not just my own — and not just someone else but the most important person in my life. That’s rough.
The fortunate part was I could live with my wife back in her hometown instead of my own. Do you know how hard it is to go back to your hometown after getting fired in a very public way?
The vast majority of these players are the best football players ever from their hometown and have been generally revered by all since they were 16 years old, if not younger.
Those same people have no idea what to say when they see you. Do they bring up the fact that you just got cut? Do they ask what’s next? Perhaps just a smile and a hello?
Believe it or not, it gets more challenging, not easier after that.
You must find a suitable place to train to ensure you are still in playing shape should you get a call. That’s easier said than done, and I recall asking the Bucknell University football coaches if I could train on their field and in their weight room.
Thankfully, they said yes, but it takes a high level of determination and discipline to work out by yourself after close to six months of doing it alongside dozens of teammates under the supervision of a handful of highly qualified strength and conditioning coaches.
Next, you must find a way to occupy yourself and your brain when you aren’t training, or else the tedious nature of “waiting for a phone call” will eat at you.
Fortunately, my wife has a family propane business, so I could stay busy, albeit as the worst propane service technician in the world's history.
I still vividly recall going into one house a week or two into the season to help get a gas stove to work. For whatever reason, the kids were home from school, and the boy was playing Madden.
A glutton for punishment, I asked him to go to the Buffalo Bills roster, so he did. I asked him to go to the left guard. He clicked on #65, Ross Tucker, and my face popped up on the screen.
He looked at me. Then he looked at the screen. Then he looked back at me. And one more time back at the screen.
“Mom!” he screamed.
She immediately came running, asking “what’s wrong?”.
“This guy is in the video game!” he exclaimed.
After 20 seconds of talking about how cool it was, the inevitable happened.
“What are you doing here?” she said.
It’s a pretty fair question when the “starting left guard” for the Buffalo Bills is assisting the real service tech in a family room in the Coal Region of Central Pennsylvania.
“I got cut,” I said. Awkwardness ensued, as you might imagine.
>> READ MORE: Coaches vs. Scouts on Roster Cuts
Waiting For 'The Call'
The hardest part was weekends, in general, and Sundays, in particular. All of these guys have been on a team playing football for the last 10+ years, and now, all of a sudden, it’s gone. You lose the structure and camaraderie of being part of a team, and even worse, you lose the joy and exhilaration of playing the sport you love.
I couldn’t watch the NFL. If I was somewhere and it was on, I got bitter and found myself rooting for offensive linemen to get hurt. I mean, seriously, how bad is that?
Unfortunately, in the zero-sum game around NFL roster spots, that was what I needed to get back on a team.
The first time I was in this position, I was thought of highly enough around the league that I would get a call almost every Sunday night or Monday morning after a team had an injury asking me to come in for a Tuesday workout. These varied greatly from organization to organization.
For some, it was just a brief physical and some drills with the offensive line coach. For others, it included a 40-yard dash, other combine style testing, and perhaps a more extensive physical.
After that, most teams just send you back to the airport without giving any feedback. At the first six or seven of these workouts that I attended in 2005, the team either promoted someone from their practice squad or picked one of the other guys who had been brought in for the group workout.
In 2005, it took a while, but I finally got signed by the New England Patriots in early December and could finish the season with them and re-sign there in the offseason.
In 2006, it never happened, and I had to think long and hard about whether or not I would try one more time in 2007. Fortunately, I got signed by Washington in 2007 and continued my career.
It will never happen for at least 500 of the guys currently out of work. Their football careers are over, and they don’t even know it.
>> READ MORE: Tracking Every Practice Squad Signing
