The Denver Broncos have begun to trim their roster down to the 53-player limit before Tuesday’s deadline.
Teams around the league began to make roster moves on Monday to get down to the league-mandated roster limit of 53 players. Once each team does that, there will likely be another flurry of moves as players are claimed through waivers while others are traded to new destinations.
Broncos general manager George Paton may look to get creative in order to not only get down to 53 players but also to acquire some future draft picks as well. But he also has some difficult decisions to make on Tuesday.
The Broncos have 74 players on the roster as of the current count. They will need to drop another 21 players to get to 53, though many of those will likely be brought back to the team’s practice squad.
Here are some of the more difficult choices facing Paton and the direction that I am going to predict that he goes in.
Prediction for Broncos final roster No. 1: The tight end spot
The question at tight end does not center around the top of the depth chart, but rather with the guys that will back them up.
Albert Okwuegbunam and Greg Dulcich should be the Broncos’ top two tight ends for years to come, but Dulcich has been hobbled all summer, so the team is going to have to rely on some of the other guys.
The Broncos could decide to keep five tight ends on the final roster but I am going to say that they only keep four in order to save space at another key spot.
It seems that Andrew Beck will hold one of those spots so the final spot would come down to Eric Saubert and Eric Tomlison. While the Broncos could certainly opt to keep them both, Saubert may offer a bit more as a receiver and that is why he gets the slight edge.
Prediction: Andrew Beck and Eric Saubert make the roster, Eric Tomlinson is cut