Today was the final day of the preseason, which means that every NFL team had to trim its roster from 90 players to 53 players. This means that a lot of NFL hopefuls have been cast into the wind. There were 12 Wisconsin Badgers who signed UDFA deals this offseason. No Wisconsin player was drafted in the last NFL draft, but 12 rookies still ended up on 90-man rosters. Now the question is, did any of them make it onto a 53-man roster?
The easy answer is no. Not a single player appeared in the final cuts. Which isn't overly surprising, but there is a little bit of a surprise to it, as it seemed there were three players with legitimate chances. Let's break it down.
After the NFL Draft, 11 Badgers signed to UDFA deals immediately (Ricardo Hallman's Denver Broncos deal came later). The expectation was that Mason Reiger, Vinny Anthony II, and Jackson Acker were the most likely players to make their teams. Reiger was impressive early and often, but then somehow he got injured and was waived with the designation "injury settlement."
Acker was also waived before the 53-man cut as he lost the fullback competition fairly early in Buffalo. Thus, the NFL was already surprising Wisconsin fans with how the 12 UDFAs were going. Anthony became the lone one of that initial group of three who continued to prove a strong chance at making the Falcons' roster.
The 12 Badger UDFAs fall into three categories and yet not one made an NFL 53-man roster
Related: Falcons waive former Badger Vinny Anthony II, but there's still reason for optimism
To flip to the other extreme, five players felt like long shots no matter what: Ben Barten, Parker Peterson, Nyzier Fourqurean, Jay'Viar Suggs, and Ricardo Hallman. While most from that group continued to be long shots throughout the preseason (Barten was even cut more than once in roster churns), one emerged. Fourqurean came out of nowhere and began to appear like the most likely of all of the Badgers to get a roster spot.
He even beat out his competition for the fifth defensive back spot. And then the Rams did something wild: they decided to only keep four cornerbacks. Fourqurean also didn't make the team.
Another group felt somewhere in the middle, not safe bets like Reiger, Anthony, or Acker but not longshots either. This remaining group seemed to be somewhere between the two. That group consisted of Lance Mason, Darryl Peterson III, Riley Mahlman, and Austin Brown.
Before the preseason got very far, Mason was cut but then claimed by the Pittsburgh Steelers, showing that maybe he was a long shot after all. However, he finished the preseason with a decent performance from a tight end and may find his way onto a practice squad. Peterson, though, ended up being the most impressive and even received the final game ball of the preseason for his impressive performance in that final game.
Brown and Mahlman didn't seem to either get enough opportunities or be able to capture them in training camp or in preseason games.
So at the end of the day, not a single UDFA Badger was chosen to be on a roster. However, don't be surprised to see about six of them on practice squads. When all that shakes out, we will add a new article to the site.
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