Green Bay Packers: Five toughest cuts in 2018
The Green Bay Packers had to make some tough decisions ahead of Saturday’s 3 p.m. deadline to formulate their final roster.
Cut day came and went and the Green Bay Packers are now down to 53 players heading into the regular season.
There were a few surprises including the decision to keep eight wide receivers. Many believed it would come down to Jake Kumerow and Trevor Davis for the seventh spot, but the Packers couldn’t give one up. Eight receivers are the most they’ve kept on the team in over ten years.
Early in the day, reports surfaced that they were looking to trade Davis, however, nothing came to fruition. He will likely be relied on as Green Bay’s primary special team’s returner for the third consecutive year. Davis missed most of training camp and three preseason games with a hamstring injury but is expected to play Week 1.
Wide receiver was not the only position that saw surprise players make the cut. The Packers chose to keep four tight ends on the roster and rounding out that group is the undrafted Robert Tonyan. Tonyan was a breakout performer in preseason after spending a year on the team’s practice squad. He caught eight passes for 61 yards and two touchdowns in four preseason appearances.
Also, safety Raven Greene made the team over Marwin Evans who had been with the team since 2016. Evans signed on as an undrafted free agent and emerged as a special teams contributor playing 331 snaps as a specialist in 2017. He hadn’t missed a game in his NFL career.
Though some guys may have been deserving, 53 spots can sometimes feel like not enough once the list shortens.
General manager Brian Gutekunst parted ways with a lot of Ted Thompson’s former draft picks with two notable ones being tackle Kyle Murphy and corner Quinten Rollins. Both were designated for injured reserve, however, they are expected to be waived.
In all, 32 players were released on Saturday and while some were easy, others were extremely difficult. Let’s focus on the latter and break down the five toughest cuts the Packers had to make to get to 53: