Buffalo Bills cut their roster down to 53 players ahead of 2020 season
The Buffalo Bills cut their roster down to the league-mandated 53 players on Saturday.
At this point of the year, there is usually a good idea of which players will make the roster and who would be cut in the annual process of trimming the roster down to 53 players. However, the Buffalo Bills, and the other NFL teams, didn’t participate in any preseason games so there was a little more mystery around the roster cutdown.
The Bills announced the players who were cut to get the team down to the 53-man roster Saturday afternoon. There were certainly some surprises but this year, more than previous seasons, there will likely be additional roster moves over the coming days.
One roster move that is almost guaranteed to take place is Jon Feliciano placed on injured reserve. He suffered a torn pec prior to training camp but is expected to be back somewhere between Week 4 and Week 6. The Bills had to wait to place him on injured reserve to avoid him being out for the whole year but now they can move him there and have him back in as little as three weeks if he is healthy.
A few of those roster moves were reported by Sal Capaccio as Andre Roberts and Dean Marlowe are expected to re-sign with the team.
The team started the process on Friday by placing Patric DiMarco on IR, which ends the 2020 season, due to a neck injury. They also released linebackers Vosean Joseph and Corey Thompson. In addition to these two, the Bills also cut Andre Smith, who they traded for earlier this week. This could have been just an issue of not enough time to get up to speed but the Bills did keep Del’Shawn Phillips, which was a bit of a surprise.
As for the news for Patric DiMarco, it was an indication that Reggie Gilliam, who was an undrafted free agent, would make the roster. He also made the roster and was the only undrafted free agent rookie to make the Buffalo Bills’ 53-man roster.
On the other side, draft picks typically made the roster their rookie season and all but one, Dane Jackson, made the team’s 53-man roster. He will need to clear waivers but likely will be brought back onto the practice squad if he does.