Former GM Explains Why NFL Waiver Wire Day Is Crucial

NFL waiver wire day is often considered the last major period of player acquisition before the regular season officially kicks off.

With the rule change by the league to eliminated the cut down period from 90 to 75 and instead just go straight to 53, it has created a log jam of players hitting the open market. That’s why there was a record number of trades before the deadline on September 2nd. It’s also why there are predictions of an overwhelming number of claims in the next 24 hours. More than the league has seen before.

Part of this is because of a greater understand of how important this process can be. Understand that over 1,100 players have just become available. It stands to reason that a fair handful of them are reasonably good football players that deserve to be on a roster. Why they ended up waived has less to do with ability and more a variety of other factors.

• Injury
• Crowded depth chart
• Poor scheme fit

Former Tampa Bay Buccaneers GM Mark Dominik helped illustrated just how potentially valuable this process can be if done right.

Those two men he just mentioned have three Super Bowl rings between them. Granted none of them came with Tampa but the point stands that Pro Bowl-caliber talent gets released by teams more often than people care to realize. It’s all a matter of putting that talent in the right situation. The fact is not every team is capable of doing that.

Nonetheless this doesn’t stop them from trying, nor should it. Players always deserve second and even third chances because they didn’t reach the NFL level by accident. Clearly they have some level of ability or they would’ve sought other employment after college. The waiver wire is a testing ground to see if other teams noticed what the originals failed to.