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Cleveland Browns 53-man roster tracker

Tracking Browns trimming the roster to 53 before Tuesday’s 4:00 PM deadline.

By Chris Pokorny, Thomas Moore, Jared Mueller, and Barry Shuck Updated
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Erik Drost on Flickr

The Cleveland Browns have until Tuesday at 4:00 PM ET to make roster cuts and announce their initial 53-man roster.

Some of those cuts or rumors about roster moves might leak early, though, so we will be tracking everything we can over the next few days. Will we see bubble players like Austin Watkins, Mohamoud Diabate, and Ronnie Hickman make the roster? Could there be bigger-name moves involving Anthony Schwartz, Cade York, or Nick Harris? Roster moves from other teams might be of interest to track too.

All players that are released must go through waivers and are eligible to be claimed by any other team until 12:00 PM ET on Wednesday. After that, any unclaimed player can be signed and teams will begin to fill out their 16-man practice squads.

You can also use the comments section to discuss cuts around the NFL that may be of interest to Cleveland.

Browns Roster Cuts Live Blog

2:37 PM: The Browns have announced their final roster cuts leading to their initial 53-man roster with the following being the final cuts:

  • RB Hassan Hall
  • RB John Kelly Jr.
  • WR Michael Woods (Reserve/Non-Football Injury)
  • DL Maurice Hurst
  • DL Jeremiah Martin

We will have more breakdowns of the initial Browns 53-man roster coming.

2:20 PM: UDFA Tanner McCalister doesn’t make the roster while fellow Buckeye Ronnie Hickman does:

2:07 PM: CB Lorenzo Burns is headed to the waiver wire per, as are all the others not noted as confirmed/reported by the team, a report:

1:00 PM: Unsurprising but we have a report that AJ Green is making the Cleveland roster for sure:

The Denzel Ward concussion probably assisted in this decision as there had been some talk of Green being traded.

12:46 PM: Projecting/guessing the final eight cuts/releases/waivings:

  1. Kellen Mond
  2. Hassan Hall
  3. Michael Woods II (injured)
  4. Charlie Thomas III
  5. Tony Fields II
  6. Lorenzo Burns
  7. Tanner McCalister
  8. D’Anthony Bell or John Kelly (struggling here as the team tends to keep 4 safeties and 4 RBs)

It is also possible another player on a one-year deal could be released and return when Alex Wright and Jordan Kunaszyk go on injured reserve tomorrow. Michael Dunn is likely one of the players that will return on Wednesday but its likely another vet will join the cut line for this reason but only for a day. - Jared

12:45 PM: The tight end room is down to three with another unsurprising waiving:

12:08 PM: Taking into account the last report, the Browns should be down to 62 players right now, with 9 more moves to come.

12:04 PM: Mary Kay Cabot of the Plain Dealer has a nice-sized update as we hit the noon hour. Some of the names we knew about, but the new cuts include: QB Kellen Mond, RB Demetric Felton, DT Trysten Hill, and DE Isaiah Thomas. Also of bigger note for fans is that LB Mohamoud Diabate and S Ronnie Hickman are expected to make the initial 53-man roster.

11:46 AM: Another midround draft pick is on his way out with DT Tommy Togiai reportedly getting waived:

11:30 AM: DE Sam Kamara, who got a lot of run early in games, is probably returning but is off the 53-man roster:

11:16 AM: And down to 68 players now, with Josina Anderson reporting that Cleveland is waiving WR Michael Harley:

11:11 AM: Some more wide receiver news, as WR Jaelon Darden (as expected) will be among the players cut. That would seem to bring the Browns’ roster to 69 players, as of this update.

10:59 AM: UDFA Lonnie Phelps doesn’t make the initial roster but a hope he can get to the practice squad:

10:32 AM: In a move that is likely to get a lot of discussion, Austin Watkins is not making the initial 53-man. Jared share that this was the likely outcome but now we have a report of the move coming:

9:28 AM: Let’s try to work the numbers as to how many players the Browns need to cut or trade today.

  • When I posted my 53-man roster projection a few days ago, we had 87 players on the roster.
  • Since then, we’ve had 14 moves (cuts, terminations, or injury designations) announced by the team. That brings you to 73 players.
  • The trade for RB Pierre Strong Jr. results in no net change, since we dealt OT Tyrone Wheatley.
  • The Browns traded for K Dustin Hopkins in exchange for a 7th-round pick, which is a net gain. The assumption is that K Cade York will be waived, basically leading to no net change, but he hasn’t officially been waived yet.
  • OG Michael Dunn is speculated to be released as the type of move to help keep a guy who later goes on IR, and then you re-sign Dunn before Week 1.
  • We’ll take the assumptions that York and Dunn are “cut” for now, which brings the roster from 73 to 71 players. That means the team still has 18 moves to make today. Jared’s math using the team site and info got us to 72... Someone might be right

Tuesday (9:16 AM): Welcome to cutdown day! Teams have to get their rosters to 53 players by 4:00 PM ET today. DBN’s Jared Mueller has a big long list of rumors that he just posted, so be sure to check that out. How big? There are 18 bullet points of information there. Here is a teaser of one of them:

Generally due diligence, but teams have checked in with the Browns about a number of players like DTR (pre-Dobbs trade), Donovan Peoples-Jones and others just in case Berry was open to moving them.

That doesn’t mean we’d expect someone like Donovan Peoples-Jones to be traded, but it is fun to digest the thought process behind the timing of certain releases too. For example, Cade York wasn’t waived yesterday because the team keeps that sliver of hope alive that someone would want to trade for him.

3:03 PM: It’s worth noting that the team has not announced anything about terminating Dunn’s contract yet. There is speculation, though, that he will be utilized as one of those hand-shake deals to help the team out with IR moves. For example, Alex Wright might make the roster, so that he can go on IR, and after that happens, the team would simply re-sign Dunn. GM Andrew Berry has been creative at the roster deadline here, making it difficult to project the 53-man roster as accurately as I normally would.

2:50 PM: One nugget that I missed earlier is that the Browns will be terminating the contract of OG Michael Dunn (he shouldn’t be subject to waivers). The team also announced that they terminated the contract of OG Wes Martin, and that OL Drew Forbes is going on the reserve/non-football injury list. You have to imagine that means that OL Nick Harris and OL Luke Wypler will be making the roster.

(Monday - 2:44 PM): We have our first big news of Monday, and it involves trying to rectify the kicker position! The Browns have traded a seventh-round pick to the Chargers for veteran K Dustin Hopkins. That means K Cade York will be sent to waivers.

3:15 PM: The Browns made some official announcements just now to reduce their roster to 76 players. They still need to make 23 moves by Tuesday at 4:00 PM ET. You can see all the confirmed cuts on our list at the bottom of this post, but Jared Mueller expanded more in detail about all of those moves here.

The biggest news, as reported earlier, involves Schwartz. Everyone else are the type of players who you'd typically see in your first round of cuts. Wilkins started at running back against the Chiefs, but had two fumbles.

3:04 PM: To the surprise of no one, the Browns are going to be cutting former third-round WR Anthony Schwartz. This follows news from earlier today that veteran WR Marquise Goodwin was coming off of the non-football injury list, which means his blood clot situation could be cleared up.

Had I known about Goodwin, I would have swapped him onto the 53-man roster projection instead of WR Austin Watkins.

12:45 PM: The first, of many, cuts to be reported has CB Caleb Biggers being waived despite his pick-6 last night:

11:30 AM: It sounds like the Browns have found their third running back, as they made a trade with the New England Patriots to acquire RB Pierre Strong.

That lessens the odds of Demetric Felton making the final roster.

10:47 AM: According to Brad Stainbrook, LB Jordan Kunaszyk has suffered a torn MCL. In light of that news, I'm going to swap LB Mohamoud Diabate in for him on my 53-man roster projection.

9:00 AM: Good morning, Browns fans! In case you missed it, I posted my 53-man roster projection on Saturday, following the Browns' 33-32 loss to the Kansas City Chiefs.

It was great to see some of the fan feedback, and then Barry Shuck and Thomas Moore already have their own articles up on agreements or disagreements with my projection. Jared Mueller thinks he can fix the projection with one move.

List of Browns Roster Cuts So Far

This list will be updated today as news comes in:

OFFENSIVE PLAYERS CUT

  • QB Kellen Mond
  • RB Demetric Felton
  • RB Jordan Wilkins
  • WR Austin Watkins
  • WR Anthony Schwartz (injury designation)
  • WR Jaylen Darden
  • WR Michael Harley
  • WR Jalen Wayne
  • TE Miller Forristall
  • TE Thomas Greaney
  • OG Michael Dunn*
  • OT Derrick Kelly
  • OG Colby Gossett
  • OG Wes Martin

DEFENSIVE PLAYERS CUT

  • DE Tommy Togiai
  • DT Trysten Hill
  • DE Isaiah Thomas
  • DE Sam Kamara
  • DE Charles Wiley (Thursday)
  • DE Lonnie Phelps
  • LB Cam Bright
  • CB Caleb Biggers
  • CB Gavin Heslop
  • S Nate Meadors

SPECIAL TEAMS PLAYERS CUT

  • K Cade York*

INJURED RESERVE

  • WR Jakeem Grant

RESERVE/NON-FOOTBALL INJURY LIST

  • OG Drew Forbes

* Not official by the team yet

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