NFL Practice Squad Rules: Size, Eligibility, Salary and More

It’s also a group that’s constantly in flux: every week, teams change something about their practice squads – sometimes just to get to know something about upcoming opponents, signing players who were with those teams in recent teams.

There is no maximum weekly salary for a practice squad player.

Here is what you need to know about the practice squad rules as it relates to the Denver Broncos.

Practice squad members bring home $6,900 per week. Today, the eligibility of who can be on a practice squad and how long they can be there is tricky, especially because the rules are always changing. The only players cut who are not eligible are guard Josh Sitton (eight seasons) and linebacker Sam Barrington (three).

The Tampa Bay Buccaneers will announce their final roster cuts at 4:00 p.m. ET today, though astute reporters have already deduced them.

Practice squad players are prohibited from signing with the next opponent of their current team any less than five days before the game, or nine days during a bye week. The highest-paid practice squad player of all time was 2015 St. Louis Rams OT Isaiah Battle.

Q: What is the practice squad? When this happens, the player is giving a guaranteed three-week salary and he is added to the 53-man roster for three weeks – even if the team decides to release him before those three weeks are up.

Not all players are eligible to be signed to National Football League practice squads (see new rules on eligibility above). Players with at least four years of service time are immediately free agents, while players with less than four years of accrued service time go through waivers. That means after cutdown day, any of the 32 teams can sign players to their active teams before practice squads are set. A practice squad player can not be signed to another practice squad unless he is first released.

Accrued seasons are earned by being on the active (53-man) roster for a team for six games in a single regular season. They do not play in games.

They can practice with the team, and that’s about it.

A practice squad player cannot sign with his team’s upcoming opponent, unless he does so six days before the upcoming game or 10 days if his team is now on a bye week. There is no limit to how much a team can pay a player on the practice squad, although the practice squad contracts do count against the salary cap. Bear in mind he will then receive 3 weeks pay even if released. This states that if a player is promoted from the practice squad for a game because a club was given a roster exemption due to confirmed or suspected cases of contagious disease among its players, the player remains on his practice squad contract, but will be paid 1/17 of the league minimum salary. “An otherwise eligible player may be a Practice Squad player for a third season only if the Club by which he is employed that season has at least 53 players on its Active/Inactive List during the entire period of his employment”.