It’s going to be a busy weekend around the NFL, and that’s because cut day is coming. During the preseason, NFL teams are allowed to carry 90 players on their roster, but every team has to get that number down to just 53 by the cut deadline at 6 p.m. ET on Sunday.
The NFL threw a slight curveball this year with the deadline: This will mark the first time in 22 years that cut day has been held on a Sunday. Between now and the deadline, a total of 1,184 players will be released, but that does not mean every single one of those players will be out of a job. Each team will be allowed to create a practice squad that consists of 16 players, and that number is allowed to hit 17 if a team adds an international player to their practice squad.
After getting cut, any player with less than four years of NFL experience will hit the waiver wire, where they can be claimed by another team. The waiver order is the same as the 2026 NFL Draft order, so the Raiders will have first dibs on claiming any player who goes on waivers. The deadline for claims is Monday at 1 p.m. ET.
On the other hand, any player with more than four years of experience will officially become a free agent after getting cut, so they won’t hit the waiver wire and they’ll be eligible to sign with any team.
Not only will there be hundreds of cuts this weekend, but there will likely be plenty of trades as well. Teams will always jump at the chance to trade a player that they were going to cut anyway so they can get some compensation in return. And teams looking to add a player will generally look to make a trade so they don’t have to deal with the waiver wire.
To keep you up to date with all the action, we’ll be keeping tabs on all the latest news, rumors and waiver claims here in our live blog. We’ve also got a full team-by-team list of every cut that’s been made, and you can check that out here.