NFL
NFL roster cuts 2024: Biggest surprises and unexpected released players
The Chiefs and the Patriots were among the teams who released notable players during the NFL roster cutdown.
The new NFL season is now just two weeks away. The 2024/25 campaign kicks off on Thursday, September 7 with defending Super Bowl champions Kansas City Chiefs taking on the Baltimore Ravens.
Ahead of the new season teams submitted their 53-man rosters on Tuesday, meaning significant cuts from the 90-man training squads used across preseason. With so many players dropped from the season-starting rosters, there were some big names who failed to make the cut. Here’s a look at a few who didn’t make it...
Why did the Chiefs cut Kadarius Toney?
A two-time Super Bowl champion, few would have expected Kadarius Toney to be without a team ahead of the start of the new season. In 2023 he made the decisive play in the Chiefs’ Super Bowl LVII victory over the Philadelphia Eagles, making a crucial 65-yard punt return in the fourth quarter.
He joined the Chiefs during the 2022 season for third- and sixth-round draft picks, arriving from the New York Giants. The Chiefs took over the remaining years of his contract with the Giants but declined the option of activating a fifth year in his deal for 2024. Toney had missed the entirely of last year’s post-season for the Chiefs due to injury and was not involved in their 2024 preseason matches.
Crowded QB room forces out Bailey Zappe
Another former regular on the cutdown list was Bailey Zappe, who was the starting quarterback for the New England Patriots towards the end of last season. He was given the starts during Bill Belichick’s final year in charge but finds himself surplus to requirements amid a glut of QB options for the Patriots.
Fellow QB Jacoby Brissett has been reinforced with the additions of Drake Maye (No. 2 overall pick) and Joe Milton III during the 2024 NFL Draft. Bailey had been waived ahead of the 2023 season but the Patriots opted to re-sign him as a free agent mid-way through the season. This time, it looks like Zappe will leave for good.
Why was Desmond Ridder cut from the Arizona Cardinals?
Just five months on from his arrival, QB Desmond Ridder departs the Cardinals as part of the cutdown. Ridder was unspectacular with the Falcons during 2023 but he had crucial starting experience and had won them games.
He looked like a decent candidate to be Kyler Murray’s back-up heading into the 2024 season. But a series of mistakes in the preseason saw him overtaken by second-year QB Clayton Tune, who has forced the 24-year-old out before he’d made even a single NFL appearance for the team.
Other surprising names released during the 2024 NFL cutdown include D’Onta Foreman (Cleveland Browns), Noah Brown (Houston Texans) and Carl Lawson (Dallas Cowboys).
Of those departures the Texans’ decision to cut Brown was perhaps the most surprising, considering that he received a lot of game time during the 2023 season. He caught 33 passes for 567 yards and two touchdowns and has valuable experience that could see him snapped up fairly soon.