The timeline is condensed, but NFL teams scrutinize potential casualties of the 53-man roster reduction just as urgently as they analyze college prospects in the months before the draft.
So, by 5 p.m. Saturday, when close to 700 names will have crossed the transactions wire in roughly 24 hours, any player needing an agent's pitch to get a second look will have a hard time getting one.
"If I was one of those (pro personnel) guys," veteran agent Drew Pittman said Wednesday, "I'd have my office line forward to, 'If you have a call regarding a player who's recently been cut, press one,' and it goes to oblivion."
Vested veterans — those with at least four years of experience — who are released can sign with any team and are known commodities, their NFL futures usually dependent heavily on past production, health and financial considerations. But only a fraction of the younger players subject to waivers will be claimed, leaving the rest in football purgatory. They could stay there for minutes or months, depending on whether the teams that ax them consider them practice-squad material.
Those players who are claimed will come from short lists teams have compiled the past month using like criteria, topped in most cases by positional need and special-teams acumen.
League-wide evaluation began in earnest for the Green Bay Packers' pro personnel department less than three weeks ago, when months of speculation about the other 31 depth charts gave way to tapes from the first full week of preseason games. The intensity only increases as the final round of preseason games begin tonight, after which video cutups and participation charts must be finalized in a hurry.
"It takes all of us going at it pretty much full-time," Packers General Manager Ted Thompson said Wednesday night.
Cutdown weekend can be pivotal, especially for less-experienced teams that might find a valuable backup from another club's trash heap. The three players the Packers claimed off waivers last Sept. 2 — cornerback Jarrett Bush, safety Charlie Peprah and guard Tony Palmer — appeared in a combined 30 games last season. The Packers also claimed a kicker, E.J. Cochrane, after the 75-man cutdown but released him four days later.
Experienced agents acutely are aware of those disparities and teams' needs.
"You certainly have confidence that your guy is going to make his current club, but you also want to have a just-in-case backup," agent Jerrold Colton said. "I haven't found it to be a wrong thing to say, 'You know what? My guy may be available, keep an eye on him, take a look,' so that they've done their homework and they're aware of your guy."
Peprah's agent, Kirk Wood, employs a former NFL kicker who compiles depth charts mostly by speaking with scouts and monitoring injuries and transactions online. Based on that information, they compile "hit lists" of five teams to fit clients who might be cut.
Colton, who counts Packers guard Travis Leffew and injured punter David Lonie among his 14 clients on NFL rosters, updates the "big board" in his office himself.
Other agents do their homework in press boxes and stadium hallways during preseason games, chatting up scouts about who or what they need.
The better an agent's clients, the less work he'll have to do this weekend.
"A lot of it is helping (players) understand how the system works, and that is that as long as you perform on the field, you've got a job," said Craig Domann, who has 28 clients in the NFL, including Packers rookie Larry Birdine. "If you wear a different-colored jersey, so be it. But if you don't perform and it doesn't work out with the team you're with, it's probably not going to work out with anybody else either."
The Packers may cut as many as 22 players — Peprah, Birdine and Palmer could be among them — the next two days, depending on injury-related transactions. More could be gone if the team finds a fullback, tight end or highly rated player at any other position via waivers or release.
If someone near the top of the pro personnel department's list becomes available, coaches will be called in for the final discussion.
"You can't control what they're going to do," said Rodney Williams, who represents another player on the Packers' bubble, cornerback Tramon Williams. "You hope the player has done enough to play himself onto the team, but if not, you're prepared for the player to get cut. You make sure he's aware of all the options out there."
Teams know theirs, and only a last-minute trade opportunity or a stunning release is likely to disturb the pecking order.
According to Wood, one NFL general manager walked into a meeting of agents and proclaimed, "Please quit sending us the tapes. You're wasting our time just processing the mail." The best bets for rookies and first-year players usually are teams that showed interest in them before their respective drafts.
Players who clear waivers can join practice squads beginning Sunday.
"In the end," said Packers safety Tyrone Culver, who might be playing for his spot on the 53-man roster in tonight's preseason game at Tennessee, "you just take care of what you can and let all the other things work themselves out."
Agents more or less will be in the same position this weekend.
"I'm prepared to work all day, but you really hope the phone doesn't ring," Colton said. "No one calls you to tell you your guy made the club. They only call you if it's the alternative.
"This is the one instance where no news really is good news."
