Predicting the Broncos’ 5 upcoming roster cuts

The Broncos need to make five cuts before 2 p.m. MT on Tuesday.

The Denver Broncos have to trim the roster from 85 players down to 80 players before 2:00 p.m. MT on Tuesday. Here’s our quick prediction on which five players could be cut this week.

  • CB Donnie Lewis Jr.: He played the fewest snaps (five) among Denver’s cornerbacks on Saturday.
  • OL Michael Niese: The Broncos have a lot of depth at guard and while Niese might be a practice squad candidate, he’s unlikely to make the 53-man roster.
  • OLB Jonathan Kongbo: Similar to guard, Denver has a crowded outside linebacker depth chart, and Kongbo will face long odds to make the active roster.
  • DB J.R. Reed: Justin Simmons and Kareem Jackson are locks at safety. Caden Sterns and P.J. Locke have been excellent this summer, and they should be locks, too. Delarrin Turner-Yell is a fifth-round pick, so that will help his case. The Broncos seem very unlikely to carry six safeties.
  • WR Trey Quinn: Before his fumble on Saturday, Quinn was having a fine summer, but Denver has more receivers on the roster (11) than any other position, and Quinn might be the odd man out.

After making five cuts Tuesday, the Broncos will face the Minnesota Vikings in their preseason finale on Saturday. After that, Denver will have until the following Tuesday (Aug. 30) to finalize a 53-man roster.

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Broncos sign 2 more minicamp tryout players

In addition to CB Blessuan Austin, the Broncos also signed WR Trey Quinn and CB Donnie Lewis this week.

Cornerback Blessuan Austin wasn’t the only player who turned a Denver Broncos minicamp tryout into a contract this week.

In addition to signing Austin on Wednesday, the Broncos also signed wide receiver/returner Trey Quinn and cornerback Donnie Lewis. KOA Radio’s Benjamin Allbright first reported the Quinn signing and KUSA-TV’s Mike Klis broke the news of the Lewis signing.

Austin, Quinn and Lewis were among seven players who tried out for the team this week. The four others — WR Keelan Doss, WR Juwan Green, TE Caleb Wilson and RB Artavis Pierce — remain free agents.

Quinn (6-0, 200 pounds) entered the league as a seventh-round pick out of SMU in 2018. Spending time with three teams, he’s caught 35 passes for 273 yards and two touchdowns in the NFL.

Lewis (6-0, 190 pounds) was also seventh-round pick out of Tulane in 2019. He’s spent time with two different teams since then but is yet to appear in a regular season game.

In addition to those three signings, the Broncos also agreed to terms on a one-year contract with running back Melvin Gordon on Tuesday. That leaves Denver with 19 open roster spots entering the NFL draft. If the Broncos don’t make any trades and use their nine draft picks, the team would then have room to sign 10 undrafted free agents next week.

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Broncos trying out 7 players at voluntary minicamp

Among the players trying out for the Broncos this week: CB Bless Austin, who has started 17 games in three seasons.

The Denver Broncos kicked off their voluntary minicamp on Monday with new jersey numbers — and some new faces.

The Broncos invited seven players to camp this week on a tryout basis, according to Ryan O’Halloran of The Denver Post. Here’s a quick glance at the players:

  • WR Keelan Doss (6-3, 215 pounds) entered the NFL as an undrafted free agent out of UC Davis in 2019. He’s spent time with four different teams and has 11 career receptions for 133 yards.
  • WR Juwan Green (6-0, 187 pounds) went undrafted out of Albany in 2020 and he’s spent time with two teams since then but is yet to appear in a regular season game.
  • WR Trey Quinn (6-0, 200 pounds) entered the league as a seventh-round pick out of SMU in 2018. Spending time with three teams, he’s caught 35 passes for 273 yards and two touchdowns in the NFL.
  • TE Caleb Wilson (6-4, 240 pounds) is a former seventh-round pick out of UCLA who’s been with four different teams, but he’s yet to catch a pass in a regular season game.
  • RB Artavis Pierce (5-11, 208 pounds) went undrafted out of Oregon State in 2020 before stints with two different teams. He’s rushed for 34 yards and one touchdown in the NFL.
  • CB Bless Austin (6-1, 198 pounds) is a former sixth-round pick out of Rutgers who played for the New York Jets and then with Seattle Seahawks, totaling 98 tackles and eight pass breakups in three seasons.
  • CB Donnie Lewis (6-0, 190 pounds) was a seventh-round pick out of Tulane in 2019. He’s spent time with two different teams since then but is yet to appear in a regular season game.

The Broncos can carry 90 players on their roster in the offseason and they have 23 open spots going into this week’s draft.

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Chad Thomas, Donovan Olumba among cuts not returning to the Browns practice squad

There were a few surprise omissions from the Browns practice squad list

There are only 16 spots on the practice squad for the Cleveland Browns. As of Monday morning, 14 of those are filled. And the two open spots appear destined for DT Eli Ankou and TE Pharaoh Brown, who were waived on Sunday when the Browns signed Joe Jackson and Vincent Taylor.

The Browns stuck close to home in filling out the practice squad. All but one of the 14 members of the initial practice squad spent training camp in Cleveland. The other, PK Cody Parkey, was the team’s kicker in 2016.

But there are some notable omissions from the practice squad list. Defensive end Chad Thomas is the biggest.

Thomas entered training camp as the No. 3 DE, or at least competing for that role with newcomer Adrian Clayborn. After a promising second season where he bagged four sacks and played well in Myles Garrett’s absence down the stretch, the arrow was pointing up for Thomas. He didn’t fare badly, not by any account from Berea. But he did fall behind Porter Gustin, one of the surprise standouts of training camp.

There didn’t appear to be interest on either side for the relationship to continue,

The same is true for CB Donovan Olumba, another training camp standout. He was cut earlier in the week and still has yet to latch onto another team. Olumba was the most surprising cut from the 53-man roster in my eyes, and it sure seemed a given he would return to the practice squad given the myriad injuries in the Browns secondary. He too remains a street free agent, unsigned as of yet.

It seems the Willie Harvey experience is also done in Cleveland. Harvey made the 53-man roster in 2019 as an undrafted rookie, but he failed to recapture the magic in 2020. He’s another unexpected omission from the list. Safety J.T. Hassell, who played capably as an undrafted rookie late last year, is another.

Maybe the team was looking for something different with these players or those positions. That certainly seems the case with Thomas, a John Dorsey pet pick that doesn’t fit the new Andrew Berry/Kevin Stefanski scheme or structure all that well. Or maybe the player(s) decided to seek out greener pastures elsewhere.

Browns roster cutdowns erase many John Dorsey legacies

The Browns roster cutdowns on Saturday erase many more John Dorsey legacies in Cleveland

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The Cleveland Browns roster turnover under new GM Andrew Berry and head coach Kevin Stefanski continued in earnest on Saturday. The cutdowns to the initial 53-man roster washed away even more of the legacy of ex-GM John Dorsey on the team.

Dorsey’s first Browns draft class, the 2018 edition, is down to just three of the nine selections: Baker Mayfield, Denzel Ward and Nick Chubb. That’s still a heck of a draft, but the failure of guys like Austin Corbett (2nd round), Chad Thomas (3rd) and Genard Avery (5th) led to redundant picks and free agent moves almost immediately.

Cutting Thomas and Damion Ratley on Saturday wiped away all the depth from the 2018 draft class. Dumping WR Taywan Taylor and RB Dontrell Hilliard stripped away two other Dorsey guys from that year, too. Dorsey’s final two picks in 2019, OL Drew Forbes (opt-out) and CB Donnie Lewis (cut) are also off the team, though Forbes will return in 2021.

Earlier moves this offseason removed Dorsey acquisitions like OT Greg Robinson, TE Demetrius Harris, OL Eric Kush, S Damarious Randall, CB T.J. Carrie and more.

Dorsey’s best moves remain vital to the core of the team. Berry and Stefanski didn’t just try to whitewash all traces of Dorsey’s influence from the team. The trio left from that ’18 draft, trade acquisitions Jarvis Landry, Odell Beckham Jr. and Olivier Vernon are all critical starters and top-10 presences on the Browns roster.

Acknowledging that Dorsey and his regime did do some great things is an important step from the new Browns management. Too many times a new regime will just try to erase every vestige of its predecessor. Browns fans know all too well the rush to turn everything over in the name of progress, if only to wash away the bad taste left behind from the old regime. Instead of doing that, Berry and Stefanski merely trimmed a lot of Dorsey-era fat from the roster.

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Browns waive 4 players in advance of roster cutdown deadline

J.T. Hassell is the only player waived with any NFL experience

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The Cleveland Browns have until Saturday at 4 p.m. ET to trim the active roster down to just 53 players, but they got a jump on the action on Thursday. The Browns announced they have waived four players.

Safety J.T. Hassell, cornerback Donnie Lewis Jr., wide receiver J’Mon Moore and defensive tackle Ricky Walker were all waived by the team. All are subject to waiver claims by other teams. If they go unclaimed, the Browns would be able to bring them back to the practice squad once that is established following the cutdowns.

Hassell is the only one of the cuts with any NFL experience. The safety played in four games for the Browns in 2019, recording seven tackles while appearing almost exclusively on special teams. Lewis was the team’s seventh-round pick in 2019 but has now failed to make the team in two seasons.

Cleveland’s roster now stands at 75 players.

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