Predicting the Cleveland Browns roster for the 2022 NFL season

The Cleveland Browns have to cut five players after its first preseason game.

The Cleveland Browns like all NFL teams can carry 90 players on their roster through the first official week of the preseason. After that, the NFL requires teams to cut players. Due to that, not every player that a fan or coach likes will make the team. Usually, the first round is guys at positions of overabundance or are the “troublemakers” who are having a hard time not messing up.

So how many players do the Browns have to cut? The first cut will see five players gone after Aug. 12’s matchup with the Jaguars. After that, another five will be cut after the Browns matchup against the Eagles on Aug. 21. Finally, the team must be down to 53 players after their matchup with the Bears on Aug. 27.

Since the Browns are allowed 90 players heading into the Jaguars game, that’s 37 total players that are going to get axed. The Browns can carry an additional 16 players on the practice squad, but as we usually see, the practice squad is not a guarantee for cut players. Browns will routinely replace and drop guys from the squad as other players from other teams are released.

So there’s no guarantee that if a guy you like gets cut, he’s going to end up on the Browns’ practice squad.

Now, we’re going to cut the roster down to 53 players, for this exercise we’re going to operate under the assumption that Deshaun Watson will be suspended, which will allow us to carry an extra player as Watson won’t count against the team’s player count as long as he’s suspended.