McDaniels Knows the Difficulty of Roster Cut Downs

The Las Vegas Raiders will conclude their preseason schedule on Saturday when they take on the Dallas Cowboys, looking to go undefeated in the preseason for the second consecutive summer.

After that, however, is the period between the preseason and the regular season where Coach Josh McDaniels and General Manager Dave Ziegler must decide which players to keep on the active roster and which players to release.

It is never an easy time for coaches and front offices, as these players are human beings who they form connections with. But at the end of the day, the NFL is a business, one in which the most difficult decisions have to be made.

McDaniels addressed the media at training camp on Tuesday and spoke on the difficult process of having to cut down his roster.

“I think it’s always difficult,” McDaniels said. “There’s a human side of that. Regardless of who you release, they’ve done a lot of work. They put a lot of effort, time, energy into competing, and trying to do the best thing for the team and trying to improve themselves. So, there’s a tremendous amount of respect that’s involved with all our players, regardless of whether they make the roster, we put them on the practice squad or ultimately they go somewhere else. You have a tremendous feeling for those guys because of all that they’ve done to try to help you and your team be better. So, I don’t really think -- it would be unfair for me to sit here and say this year’s decisions will be harder than last year’s, because I kind of look at them all -- they’re not fun to go through at the end of the day, because like I said, there’s a human element to it. The goal for us will be always to try to make every one of them difficult. Because we’ve added some competition in every room at every spot. And so I hope we want to keep 80 guys, and not there are 47 who we like and we’re trying to figure out who the other six are. I don’t think we’re going to be in that boat. I think there’s going to be a number of players we would love to keep, as I mentioned, that’s kind of go where it goes into the 53-plus 16, 17 extra guys where you’re saying: ‘How can we construct this thing, so we have the best group of players going forward?’”

McDaniels has been through several roster cuts as a coach and knows this process never gets easier, but understands it is necessary to field the best team he and the Raiders possibly can.

The Raiders are looking to get back into playoff contention, and playoff teams have to make sacrifices. They will do just that next week, and will have to sever ties with players they mighty have liked but ultimately have to move on from.

NFL teams must cut their rosters down to 53 players by 4 p.m. EDT on Tuesday, Aug 29.

The Silver and Black return to preseason action when they play the Dallas Cowboys at AT&T Stadium in Arlington, Texas, on Saturday, Aug. 26, at 8 p.m. EDT/5 p.m. PDT.

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