Denver Broncos: 5 worst moves on the final 53-man roster

3. The unnecessary sixth DL shuffle

On the initial 53-man roster, the Denver Broncos kept Jonathan Harris, a defensive lineman that hadn’t made much noise at all in training camp or preseason play.

That doesn’t necessarily matter as the coaches and scouts for the team certainly see plenty from every guy on the roster to determine their worthiness for a spot. Harris wasn’t particularly bad, by any means.

With that being said, his initial placement on the 53-man roster turned out to be worthless. As sure as I am that the Denver Broncos kept Harris abreast of their decisions, the team cut him the day after he made the 53-man roster just to bring Shamar Stephen back and put Harris back on the practice squad.

Why was this not simply the original direction the team went?

Perhaps there was something contractually with Shamar Stephen that we don’t know about, but this seems like a pointless move to have made in hindsight.

Maybe the Broncos were worried that Harris wouldn’t make it through the initial waiver wire poaching process, but he did make it through the second time, so their fears were apparently unwarranted.

At the end of the day, both Stephen and Harris are on the team, but the Broncos might have been able to keep another player that got poached (more on this later) if they had just cut Harris and Stephen to begin with.