Nicki's 53:
Injuries have altered the calculus for Washington's initial 53-man roster, which is likely to change before the Sept. 13 season opener.
www.nytimes.com
(She writes for the Athletic, I think the link should work.)
I asked my friend Jean Claud to compare them. He did the splits, then came up with this:
Both lists were extracted and cross-checked position by position. The two predicted 53-man rosters agree on 49 of the 53 players — every quarterback, wide receiver, tight end, defensive lineman, safety, and special-teamer matches exactly (WRs are just listed in a different order in each). The four spots where the writers disagree:
| Position | Only in Keim's 53 | Only in Nicki's 53 |
|---|
| Running back | Robert Henry Jr. (Keim keeps 4 RBs) | — (Nicki keeps only 3 RBs) |
| Offensive line | — (Keim keeps 8 OL) | D.J. Humphries (Nicki keeps 9 OL) |
| Linebacker | Kain Medrano (Keim's LB group totals 9) | — (Nicki's combined LB/OLB group totals 8) |
| Cornerback | — (Keim keeps 4 CBs) | Fabian Moreau (Nicki keeps 5 CBs) |
A few notes on why the counts still both land at 53: Keim carries an extra running back (Henry) and an extra linebacker (Medrano) instead of the extra offensive lineman (Humphries) and extra cornerback (Moreau) that Nicki carries — the two swap "the same number of bodies" in different position groups.
Also worth flagging: both writers exclude the same fringe/injured names from their actual 53 (Laremy Tunsil and Johnny/Jer'Zhan Newton on IR, Dorance Armstrong on suspension, plus bubble guys like Ale Kaho, Julian Good-Jones, Jeremy McNichols, Jerome Ford, Van Jefferson, Zach Ertz, and Lawrence Cager) — so none of those are true "disagreements," just players correctly left off by both.
** I didn't include Standig because his is on his Substack and is a paid subscription, and I didn't want to post something he hasn't made available. I can say, his is different in one way (this is part of the preview): He only keeps 2 QBs (Daniels and Mariota), and 3 RBs (Bill, White, Allen.) So his definitely would differ more than Nicki and Keim's.
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