With cutdown day over and done with, the Jets will shift their focus to their practice squad on Sunday.

The practice squad features a few new rules this year due to the COVID-19 pandemic. There can be 16 total players on the practice squad, up from 10 in previous years. Six of the players can have as many accrued seasons as possible, while the rest either have no accrued seasons, one-plus accrued seasons or two accrued seasons.

Teams can protect four players on their practice squad from being signed by other teams. As long as teams submit their names the Tuesday before a game, then no other team can sign them.

With that being said, let’s take a look at four players the Jets should protect for their practice squad.

QB David Fales

The Jets are going to need another quarterback on the roster for Week 1, so they’ll likely bring David Fales back to their practice squad as long as he clears waivers.

With Joe Flacco out for the first few weeks, the Jets only have one healthy quarterback to backup Sam Darnold. That would be rookie quarterback James Morgan. So the Jets are going to need Fales to be the third or No. 2 quarterback just in case both Sam Darnold and Morgan were to get hurt.

Fales doesn’t have a lot of game experience, but he knows Adam Gase’s playbook. Wherever Gase has gone, Fales has followed. New York can promote Fales to the 53-man roster twice before he is subject to waivers.