The first real roster crunch of the NFL calendar always tells you something, and this one said plenty. With the 2026 opener between the Seahawks and Patriots just eight days away, teams spent Sunday trimming down to 53, and the biggest takeaway was a clear one: quarterbacks are being treated like prized assets.
Four teams - the Vikings, Steelers, Falcons and Eagles - kept four quarterbacks after the cutdown. Make it five if you include the Browns, who placed Dillon Gabriel on injured reserve with what looks like a short-term injury.
That kind of quarterback hoarding wasn’t random. It was about protecting value.
In most of those cases, there’s a rookie in the mix. Minnesota is the exception, with a second-year player in Max Brosmer, who arrived as an undrafted free agent.
That matters because teams were clearly wary of exposing young passers to waivers. Brosmer made it through the initial cut, then was waived Monday, and there’s a reason that timing matters: a young quarterback is more likely to slip through waivers a day after the cutdown, when rosters are less flexible and clubs are less eager to make a move than they were during the chaos of Sunday.
There’s also a trade angle here. The Eagles, for instance, signed Andy Dalton this offseason with the idea that Tanner McKee might have value on the market.
McKee has been developed, is in a contract year, and was effectively pushed down the pipeline when Philadelphia drafted Cole Payton. That makes him the kind of player teams think about as more than just insurance.
But carrying four quarterbacks has a downside. Game day only allows 46 players to dress, which makes the back end of the roster a real puzzle.
Once you get to spots 51 through 53, teams are forced to weigh future value against immediate help, especially on special teams. Quarterbacks usually don’t help there, so keeping extra passers turns those roster spots into a tougher tradeoff than usual.
The quarterback story didn’t stop there. Cade Klubnik won the backup job behind Geno Smith with the Jets, beating out Bailey Zappe and Brady Cook. Zappe is a five-year veteran who has appeared in 15 games with nine starts, while Cook is a 2025 undrafted rookie who spent time on and off the Jets’ practice squad last year.
Klubnik’s profile explains why the Jets are intrigued. He was ranked No. 1 at the position nationally coming out of Westlake in Texas, a school that produced Drew Brees and Nick Foles.
The traits are obvious: size, arm strength and athletic ability. He also arrived with a lot of developmental work ahead of him because of the college system he played in.
Still, the Jets have liked what they’ve seen, and he’s become a player people in that building are high on.
That doesn’t lock anything in for the long term, and it doesn’t mean the Jets wouldn’t draft another quarterback high next year. But naming him the backup this quickly says something.
Sunday’s other notable football-business moment came with Aaron Donald’s return, and the Rams’ handling of their money drew praise. Their ownership went over budget in a year they believe could be special. NFL teams usually set cash plans in February, and the Rams already spent heavily on players like Trent McDuffie and Jaylen Watson, with a possible Puka Nacua deal still on the horizon.
Then they added Myles Garrett, who wasn’t really on their radar until late March after they missed on Maxx Crosby and A.J. Brown, at $37 million in cash for this year.
They also brought back Aaron Donald at $20 million, which is the baseline he’ll get if he avoids injured reserve. That says plenty about how Stan Kroenke is running the team.
The Eagles’ cutdown also showed just how deep they are, even with questions at the top of the roster after replacing A.J. Brown at receiver and Jaelan Phillips on the edge.
Philadelphia had four players claimed by other teams, and that’s not an accident. It reflects both strong drafting and the broader work the organization does in player development, with Connor Barwin leading that area.
Put simply, Philadelphia invests heavily in the bottom of the roster, and it shows. Monday was another reminder.
Elsewhere, six other teams had multiple players claimed. The Chiefs had three, while the 49ers, Broncos, Cowboys, Panthers and Colts had two each.
The Dolphins were the biggest claim story of all. They picked up seven players, which is a huge number no matter where you sit in the waiver order.
Miami was 11th, which means those seven players were passed over by 10 other teams. That’s a striking amount of activity, especially at that spot in the order.
It also comes with a cost. To claim seven players, a team has to cut seven of its own, and those are players who had already survived camp long enough to be part of the initial 53-man picture.
Add in the trade of Quinn Ewers, and Miami now has only 45 players on its 53-man roster who were in camp with the Dolphins. That’s half the number they had when camp opened, and it’s a good snapshot of how much work GM Jon-Eric Sullivan and coach Jeff Hafley still have ahead of them.
Seven other teams also added multiple players on the initial claim. The Titans and Falcons took three each, while the Patriots, Giants, Vikings, Saints and Jets claimed two apiece.
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Pickens time in Pittsburgh had plenty of talent but also enough friction to make the choice easier to understand in hindsight. The fines and on-field incidents that followed him through his Steelers tenure were part of the backdrop, and Tomlins comments made clear those issues mattered when the team weighed what it wanted next at the position. The larger question now is how far Pittsburgh was willing to go to draw that line, and what it says about the standard the front office wants to keep enforcing. [Read more 🡒]