The Dallas Cowboys are all set to enter the real stages of preparation for the 2022 season. Following Friday’s final OTA session, everything else the club does in an organized way will be mandatory. The team will conduct their minicamp next week before taking a month off to prepare for July’s training camp. That coincides with the three preseason games that lead to final roster cuts and the beginning of the regular season campaign. Along the way, Dallas and the other 31 NFL teams will whittle their rosters down.
There have been a handful of roster rule changes this year. To review, the roster size remains at 53 maximum and the practice squad limit remains at 16. There were changes to the IR rule, with players now having to sit out a minimum of four games instead of three, and teams having a maximum of eight returnable players in one season. Each player can be reactivated a maximum of two times, and both count towards the maximum returners.
In addition, players can be elevated from the practice squad to the game-day roster up to three times now, instead of two, without it counting as a full promotion.
Below is a prediction of what the roster and depth chart could look like, if things through the next three months fall in a certain way. There are several hotly contested positions which could go either way, and as always injuries will play a major role in how things eventually shake out.