The Jacksonville Jaguars currently have 90 players on their roster, but by the time the regular season starts, they will need to have that number down to 53 along with the rest of the league. Just as it did last season, the process of trimming the roster down will begin in the preseason and the NFL has proved a vote to bring back the gradual roster cut system it used last season.
According to ESPN’s Jeremy, the owners set the schedule of when these cuts will happen on Tuesday.
League owners approve roster changes for preseason – reductions to 85 players after the first preseason game, 80 after second game, and 53 after third game. pic.twitter.com/PntQmOHBDs
— Jeremy Fowler (@JFowlerESPN) May 24, 2022
The first wave of cuts will be due by Tuesday, Aug. 16. At that point, every team will need to part ways with five players, which would trim their rosters down from 90 to 85 players.
With the Jags and Las Vegas Raiders having the luxury of playing in the Hall of Fame game, they will have two preseason games out of the way at that point instead of one like the rest of the league. That game takes place on Aug. 4 and their second preseason game, which is against the Cleveland Browns, takes place on Aug. 12.
The next deadline to cut five more players and hit the 80-man mark will take place on Tuesday, Aug. 23. That’s three days after the Jags’ preseason game against the Pittsburgh Steelers.
Then lastly, all rosters must be trimmed down to 53 players on Tuesday, Aug. 30, which is three days after the Jags’ last preseason matchup against Atlanta.
With the additions, the Jags made in free agency and the draft, there appears to be a lot of change on the horizon when it comes to comparing the 2021 roster to the pending 2022 roster. That means Doug Pederson and Trent Baalke have a difficult task ahead when it comes to these roster cuts, but in the end, the Jags should be significantly better.