With 8 cuts yesterday and 2 more cuts today (S Ricky Thenarse and DT Jay Alford), the Seahawks have now reached the 80-man roster, with cut downs to 53 a short week away. The Kelly Jennings trade also happened but obviously doesn't directly impact the 80-man roster, otherwise yesterday and today were fairly unsurprising, no real shocks among the release list. A quick look:
WRs Patrick Williams, Chris Carter and Brandon Smith: Williams and Carter were both signed to reserve/futures contracts at the end of last season, Williams a former Packers WR and Carter an UDFA try-out who missed the draft period due to injury. Brandon Smith is an UDFA out of Arizona State signed to provide depth. With our depth at WR, there was no way any of these guys were going to make the 53, though Pat Williams showed up a few times in the pre-season.
FB/TE Ryan Travis: Ryan Travis is another UDFA who we were trying out as a H-Back/TE/FB-tweener type player. He was behind Michael Robinson and Dorson Boyce on the depth chart and I don't think he ever even saw the field. We're looking at bringing in FB Mike Karney, so this cut is no surprise.
CB Jesse Hoffman, S Rickey Thenarse: A pair of UDFAs who came in right after the league year kicked off, you can read the writeup Danny did here. Both played a little bit in week one though I don't recall seeing much of them since. Again, this is a story of depth, we're way overstocked at the DB spots.
LB Neal Howey: Howey is a "ridiculous athlete"-type UDFA, brought in to get a look at his potential upside. We're pretty stocked with high-upside LBs so no surprise here.
OG Zach Hurd: Hurd is a bit of a surprise, he's a raw but high-upside player, a powerful run-blocker at the G spot that could take over Gallery's role (who he seems vaguely similar to) a few years down the line, so I kind of expected him to stick around for the practice squad. He must have underwhelmed.
DTs Teryl White, Jay Alford: When the lockout ended and with Cole injured, Jay Alford was the starting 1-tech on paper. But that was back when we had only 3 healthy DTs under contract. To see Alford go is mildly surprising since he was an experienced and talented DT (drafted in the 3rd round in 2007 by the Giants), but he has had injury problems his entire career, including his short time with us, so that must've lead to his release. A shame, he could've played long snapper for us as well. White was a somewhat touted UDFA who signed with the Rams but didn't make it there, and now didn't make it with the Seahawks either. He worked out for the Colts as well, and is an undersized (lanky) defensive tackle who might latch on to a Tampa-2 team.
Hurd and Alford are the only mildly surprising ones on the list, it's mostly buried guys getting cut here. The real pain is incoming in a few days, September 3rd. Take a look at Sando's chart to compare our current depth to last year's initial 53.