Cowboys roster cuts reactions: Assessing the composition of the 53-man roster

What a crazy day roster cut day is. It’s sad that so many NFL players are suddenly out of a job and for some their dream of becoming a professional football player comes to an end. For fans, it’s judgment day and we finally get a glimpse of the 2018 collection of players. Of course, fans were sent into a hysteria when this news broke:

Don’t adjust your TV sets. You are reading that correctly. The Cowboys have released the second-most accurate kicker in NFL history. Of course, he would still be the first-most had it not been for last year’s struggles. And you’d have to think that something could be lingering issues with him for the Cowboys to cut one of their most reliable players on the team over the last eight seasons. If you had Bailey as a potential roster cut, then congratulations - you have special clairvoyant powers and I never want to play paper-rock-scissors with you, but for us regular people - we never saw it coming.

The Cowboys announced their 53-man roster (for now). Which of the bubble players made the team? On Friday, the front page writing staff attempted to predict the final roster. How did we do? Let’s review all our predictions and see how close we came...

Despite the recent news that Rico Gathers got in trouble for possession of marijuana, the Cowboys still kept him on the team.

The biggest zingers were quarterback Mike White and wide receiver Deonte Thompson. The Cowboys are sticking with their plans when it comes to developing White despite not having a very good training camp.

It didn’t matter if you were on Team Lenoir or Team Thompson, both groups were disappointed as the Cowboys didn’t keep either of them. Instead, they went with the same sixth receiver they had on the team last year.

Of course, keeping Brown around now can open up a roster spot later.

Not only did the Cowboys not keep either of the two receivers we thought who were vying for that last roster spot, they didn’t keep either of their depth running backs as well.

So, what will the team do for running back? Maybe they plan to bring one of these guys back once a roster spot becomes available from their injury moves? Or could they pull someone from the outside?

The Cowboys don’t need to be in a hurry on this issue as Mike Fisher reminds us of their role.

The Cowboys defensive tackle group consists of:

Tyrone Crawford, Maliek Collins, Brian Price, Antwaun Woods, Datone Jones, and Daniel Ross.

Daniel Ross is the biggest surprise here. He was running with the first team in the preseason, but most of us didn’t think too much about it.

Why yes, Rabs, someone did see that coming - the Cool One.

The release of Jihad Ward caught many of us off-guard as well. And despite suffering a knee injury midway through preseason, Datone Jones did enough to earn a roster spot. Jones was no. 1 on our list of dark horse candidates back in January and it was great to see him make the squad.

This seems like a large amount of defensive tackles to carry, but remember - one of them is injured and David Irving will be out the first four games with a suspension. There’s a good chance at least one of these guys are on a one-month trial offer.

We all guessed wrong about Chris Covington. He was teetering back forth a couple times for a few of us, but it was hard to get a sense for what he could do with limited action. Bronchitis caused him to miss some time and he really wasn’t making much of a splash in the preseason unless you count holding penalties. The Cowboys, however, see him as a part of the future as he made the team.

The Cowboys really have us on our heels as we have no idea what they are up to in the secondary. For starters, they traded Charvarius Ward to the Kansas City Chiefs on Thursday for offensive line help. That created the impression that the Cowboys were satisfied with what they had at the position enough to let Ward go. But what we didn’t know is whether it would be Duke Thomas or Donovan Olumba. As it turns out, they chose neither. This leaves the Cowboys with only four cornerbacks on the roster. Not only that, the Cowboys also only have four safeties on the roster. Clearly, Dallas has some work to do filling out roster spots for their secondary. Of course, that could all be rectified by one quick little trade.

So, how did we do? Here is the final tally for the bubble boy scores as well as total correct roster picks.

How did you do? Which picks did you nail and which ones caught you by surprise?