The term depth has been thrown around a lot lately, and a team wants to have a lot of it, but how much can we really have with a 53 man roster? Cuts are coming.
I thought I’d just run the numbers. 53 is the total (We won’t talk about the practice squad in this discussion). Lets breakdown the numbers simply by taken the obvious into consideration. There 11 starters on offense and 11 on defense, added together equals 22. 53 – 22 = 31. For continuing this discussion, let’s have each of those starters having a backup (a #2), so that is 22 x 2 = 44, and 53 – 44 = 9. We have room for 9 extra bodies, right? [Yes, that is a trick question.] Have we forgotten some mandatory positions? Yes, the kickers. K + P = 2, and 44 + 2 = 46, and 53 – 46 = 7. Hmmm, lucky number 7.
Here’s where it will get tricky, because teams use specialty positions to change formations. The Vikings play for example a 4-3 defense, meaning that employ 4 down linemen, 3 linebackers, and 4 defensive backs. However, if the opposing offense changes its formation to a 3 wide out set, we’ll try to counter that extra receivers speed and skill set in obvious passing downs by pulling a linebacker and replacing him with a 5th, or “nickel” defensive back. If, the O goes with a 4 WR set, we may pull a lineman or another linebacker and go with a 6th, or “dime” DB. In those cases if you just used the your backups, out of 4 starters and 4 backups, 8 total, you put 5 and maybe 6 on the field, that only will leave you 2 in reserve. That is uncomfortably thin if the injury bug bites. The coaches will have to determine how much risk they are willing to live with, and that might involve how often they are in those formations, or how well players in their current position play against the new threat, and at what point does him being replaced by a specialist make better sense. In this example the nickel formation is popular, but dime will be rare.
On the offensive side of the ball, the multiple formations grow exponentially with whom and of what position do you have on the field. The offense wants to create mismatches to gain tactical advantage over the defense. Like describing for the defense, a possible formation is a 3 wide receiver set, and usually one running back will be pulled for the 3rd receiver, and it is usually the fullback. With a 4 WR set, you may have no backs. There are other sets where a second tight end is added, or an H/Flanker/Z back is added, and like with the D, you start eating into your backups and the question is how much risk of injury do we want to take? How much value do the guys that fall into these specialized positions give the team in the way of production versus running a set, very vanilla game plan? Obviously enough; we do use them to gain advantage over our foes.
Then there are special teams and the kickers are the only ones that are necessary to make this important part of the game productive. Place kicking is a specialty as well as punting, and there hasn’t been a player in the league for decades that could do both so well that he was the only kicker on the roster. With the special teams come other positions with specialized skill sets; the long snapper, the gunners, and the returners. You have to have a guy with the ability to snap the ball long for punts, field goal and extra point tries. The snapping motion for that is different from hiking the ball to the quarterback, even when he is in the shotgun position. The returner is a guy that can do just that by definition. It takes someone that can handle a tumbling ball of a kick, versus a spiraling ball of a pass, and do this with 10 guys barreling down on him with the sole purpose of separating his head [or at least the football] from his body. Because speed is their biggest ally, the returners are quick, fearless, but sometimes a tad bit on the small side. The gunner position looks for the fast headhunter that screams down to meet the returner, and he too is fearless and goes full speed through blocks to reach his target creating man on man collisions the likes that are not seen in any other sport. These type players are not your typical football player but are extremely necessary for good special teams.
To squeeze in the most positions you can onto a team to give it the advantage of changing things up and taking advantages of the opponents weaknesses, having players that can play multiple positions is a necessity. But even then, you can not drop below the injury risk threshold for any given position. The Vikings and every other team in the league have already started the process of evaluating who will stay and who will go, so get out your fuzzy math calculators and help figure out how to squeeze about 20 positions from that last, lucky 7.
Next week we start pearing down the roster. It will start to look drastic, but it is necessary. I closed the piece by asking who will fill that last remaining 7? One will be our #3 QB because we won't go with just two, but which players do you think will remain and make it into that magic number 53?
Someone had let me know that they liked the article.
I'm glad you liked the article. I got thinking about depth after the comment by Noroof that we had plenty of depth at LB. I started running numbers through my head when I knew that guys like Farwell and Ciurciu primarily will be starters as special team artists and not because of their linebacking skills. They will be depth at linebacker and Farwell is #2 behind Greenway.
This plays out all over the team, like Loeffler being considered as a backup tight end, or even when you get guys like Cook or Hicks that can play multiple positions. Versatility is a definite plus for anybody trying to make the team.
Reyes, the punter/kickoff guy had the opportunity to make the team just for that reason, but looks like he is blowing it. Plus with the limited numbers, like last year, throw in a couple of serious injuries in one area like defensive backs, and where we once were fat, we're now hurting.
It is a real trick to get 53 to play more like 75.
I'm glad you enjoyed it and thankful to all that took time to read it.
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