Bills reduce roster to 75
by Chris Brown, Lead Journalist Last Updated: 8/26/2008 11:47 AM ET




Just a handful of hours prior to the 4pm league deadline, the Bills made the necessary decisions to reduce their roster to 75 players.

Headlining the list of players released was seventh-round pick Kennard Cox. The defensive back was the last of Buffalo’s three seventh-round selections, but was at arguably one of the most competitive positions in training camp.

Cox was even used at free safety in the preseason to explore other possible position options. The Pitt product is expected to merit strong consideration for Buffalo’s practice squad which will be assembled early next week.

Also released on Tuesday were punter D.J. Fitzpatrick, receiver C.J. Hawthorne and defensive end Shaun Nua.

The final roster move to get Buffalo to the required 75 player limit was accomplished by placing quarterback Matt Baker on the waived-injured list. Baker suffered a broken rib in the last preseason game.

What does DJ Fitzpatrick do for the rest of the year when the Bills don't have training camp?

Kicks the living crap out of stuff.

Thanks, K-Gun.

Fitzpatrick kicked well. The Bills did him a favor @ Indy by showcasing him. Hope he lands with another team. Cox impressed. I hope he's available to sign to our PS.

Cox will probably be brought back for the PS if no-one picks him up...the only surprise I see is that I didn't realize Baker was hurt...but I'm not sure what the waived injured list is...dose it mean hes cut but injured or??

The Baker thing is interesting. I doubt Trent plays this week. I guess they could play JP a quarter and then have Hamdan play the rest of the game. It could be good for him. It may even help him make the final roster, because if they don't have an emergency #3 for the practice squad, they may be forced to keep three active QBs on the opening day roster. I suppose it depends on how long Baker would be out (as he still has a year left on PS eligibility) or if they have a guy they like they can get from another team they could add to the practice squad.

I think Dustin Fox over Cox is a surprise.

I think fox will be cut also, but your right on that....another thing is, as some have mentioned, sometimes teams try to slip a player onto PS by cutting him on first round of cuts...not sure if that's the case tho

Like Kids and stuff?


Drop Kick!


Breakdance Fighter Kick!


Party Kick!

Still 22 more to go.

And they've done the early-cut thing before to try to sneak guys onto the PS, if that's the direction they're leaning. We discussed that re: Jason Peters ...

Edit: or what Tsaikotic said two minutes ago ...

http://wiki.answers.com/Q/What_does_it_mea..._waived_injured

"Waived injured' means the team is releasing the player but the player is injured. The team is responsible to pay the player until his injury has healed. This is usually done by reaching an agreement for a specific amount of money, called an injury settlement. Other teams are allowed to pick up players on the waived injured list but they are forewarned that the player is not in condition to play. Sometimes, if a player on the waived injured list is not selected by another team, the team will retain the player and place him on its injured reserve list."

Not sure if it helps but it basicly says he's cut but injured, the addition of the injured reserve info add's more confusion then being helpfull. I'm surprised to hear Baker broke a rib in the Colts game he didn't look hurt at all.

It certainly raises a question about thursdays game, JP looked like he hurt his thumb again in the Colts game allthough maybe they iced it simply to prevent the swelling he had earlier from returning. Certainly sounds like thursday is going to be Hamdan day.

Edit: KFFL simply lists Baker as released: http://www.kffl.com/player/14914/NFL as reported by our board resident ESPN writer Tim Graham.

Bank or spend some nice coin for a short-term part-time job? He wasn't laboring for minimum wage, hogging out grease traps.

Where's the surprise?

Actually, if I'm not mistaken, players wages during training camp is pretty low, last I saw, something like $500/week stipend.
(Someone more diligent than me can check out the CBA to see how much it is now.)
They only make the coin IF they make the roster and get a game check (which would amount to like $15k or more for that week)

$800 for rookies, $1225 for vets. This came up when they signed Hawthorne:
http://www.nflplayers.com/user/template.as...=692&type=c

That's what I was wondering.



There's an article about Earnest Graham in the latest ESPN the magazine. It talks about how little camp guys get paid and his struggle to get on a team and the financial struggle it caused his family.

$800/week is a LOT more than most of these guys would make out of football. Plus I'm pretty sure they get free room & board in camp.

It's not much for risking career ending injuries plus it's only for a couple of weeks...

What's the point of this tier of roster cutdowns? You go from 80 to 75? It seems pretty trivial.

Coming back to the waived-injured list discussion we had earlier today, Chris Brown says in his daily vid on bb.com that if Baker clears waivers he will be put on IR. I assume this has to do with the Bills beeing responsible for his paycheck for the duration of his injury.

Waived-injured is there to prevent teams from stashing two dozen prospects on IR every year. There's no rule about the likely duration of an injury affecting whether or not you can use IR, so if you don't mind paying 30 guys the minimum to not play, you could just have Prospect City on your roster.

Now, if anyone thinks one of them is NFL-worthy, they can give them a roster spot.