Laddie Morse
Today is cut down day at 3:00 PM CDT or you could call it Alchemy Day like I do. As offered by the Routledge Encyclopedia of Philosophy, Alchemy means, “the quest for an agent of material perfection, produced through a creative activity, in which humans and nature collaborate.” In this case, every National Football League team is transforming their roster into a 2024 version of itself. The 2013 Kansas City Chiefs had first crack at of all the players who were cut but the 2024 Chiefs are last in line to take a player they like and add him to their roster. Thus, the talk of a trade has been bandied about.
That may also be part of the reason the Chiefs re-signed JuJu Smith-Schuster to their team, an early addition that may end up paying dividends. With each NFL team cutting their rosters down to 53 men, it means that 37 players (90 player – 53 roster spots = 37) must be cut by the end of the business day today (or 4:00 PM, Eastern time). That’s 37 x 32 (teams) = 1184… or nearly 1,2,00 players.
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Thus… Alchemy Day.
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The Chiefs are now last on the list to claim players from other teams cut lists, because they won the most recent Super Bowl. The fact that this is the second straight year they’ve done so, that has nothing to do with them getting the 32nd pick of the litter, because they’ve already been through that last year.
NFL Teams have already begun to cut players. Some, have asked for an early release in hopes that they could catch on with another team. From USA Today:
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“Many have already made an initial reduction with some fairly notable players among those headed for the free agent pool, including:
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OLB Randy Gregory (Buccaneers),
S Ronnie Harrison (Colts),
LB Deion Jones (Bills),
RB Joshua Kelley (Giants),
WR Denzel Mims (Jaguars),
RB Boston Scott (Rams),
[WR] JuJu Smith-Schuster (Patriots),
TE C.J. Uzomah (Eagles),
and QB Mike White (Dolphins).
Smith-Schuster already caught on with a new (and former) employer Monday.”
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The Chiefs face an uphill battle naming their final 53 because so many players have had an outstanding training camp and offseason. The biggest logjam appears to be at Wide receiver. Although the Chiefs have just re-signed WR JuJu Smith-Schuster, that means their WR list looks like this:
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• Hollywood Brown
• Xavier Worthy
• Rashee Rice
• Justin Watson
• JuJu Smith-Schuster
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While those five appear to have a 53-man roster spot locked up, that leaves many other WRs looking to fight it out for one or two positions.
Players that include:
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• Mecole Hardman
• Justyn Ross
• Nikko Remigio
• Skyy Moore
• Kadarius Toney
• Montrell Washington
• Cornell Powell
• Phillip Brooks
• Kyle Sheets
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The reality is that the top three on this list (Remigio, Ross and Hardman) are the likely players who will be chosen from to make up the final two… if… the Chiefs keep 7 WRs. Some see Mecole Hardman as a lock. Below is a list of the players provided by Pete Sweeney of ArrowheadPride, the number of players kept at each position by the Chiefs since 2013, when Andy Reid first came to K.C..
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Pete Sweeney of ArrowheadPride – Photo credit
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Note that 3 times out of the 11 seasons — as recently as 2022 — that Andy Reid has been with the Chiefs, he’s kept more players on Offense (26) than he has on Defense. Could this be one of those years? Even if it is, 7 players appears to be the max number of players he has kept at WR.
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Adam Schefter is reporting that the Chiefs have already released thier first 12:
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That’s 12 down, 25 to go. Do you have any preferences as to who the Chiefs keep, or who they don’t keep?
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Laddie Morse — ArrowheadOne
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