Was doing a thought exercise of this very subject last night to see what I thought the construction might look like. Obviously there will be a level of unknown variance as I could see us picking up ~3 players cut off other teams. I also go more vague with positions as modern NFL is so fluid with what players in each position are doing, especially when most teams play nickel the majority of the time.
Special Teams: 3
ST: Fairbairn, Weeks, Johnston
Offense: 25
QB: Stroud, Mills, Keenum
RB: Pierce, Singletary, Boone, Ogunbuwale
WR: Woods, Brown, Dell, Collins, Hutchinson, Metchie
OL: Tunsil, Green, Scruggs, Mason, Howard, Jones, Dieter, Patterson (Fant, Heck)
TE: Schultz, Quitoriano, Schreck
FB: Beck
Defense: 25
DT: Collins, Rankins, Ridgeway, Lopez, Hinish
DE: Anderson, Hughes, Greenard, Martin, Horton
S: Ward, Pitre, Murray, Stewart
LB: Perryman, Harris, Cashman, To'o To'o, Littleton, Kirksey
CB: Stingley, Nelson, King, Thomas, Griffin
Initial things that jump out to me are the amount of guys who are on the cusp or we could look to upgrade which I feel is about 7 (Ogunbuwale, Dieter, Quitoriano, Schreck, Littleton, Kirksey, Griffin). Things like special teams will obviously have a massive effect on this as that's what gives the guys like Ogunbuwale the depth spot on the roster in the first place. It's also why I'm not sure what they'll do with DTs as 5 seems like a lot especially when they're not really special team contributors, but I think they really like all 5 guys.
O-line is also a question as I think they keep 8 but how that works especially with Howard's injury is a mystery. Is Howard simply going to play week 1? Is Jones ready enough to just simply play instead of Fant so he can get cut? Does Heck stay on the PUP list to start the season (probably)? Do they opt to keep Pattersson for fear of another team who had a draftable grade on him scooping him up?
Overall I think they'll probably drop someone on the backend of a position and add a DB, especially for special teams and also because 4 safeties and 5 corners is probably too light. Is Danztler that guy?
Also how serious is Johnston's injury? Do we need to go into week 1 with 2 punters?
There's several teams who look like they're really well stocked with RBs so is one available to us that makes cutting Ogunbuwale viable? I'd like to see it happen but I'm worried we're going to stick with the current group because of special teams.
Can we get a viable TE because everything after Schultz is just a pile of question marks.
Overall we're second on the waiver wire so it's a big opportunity for Nick that I'm hopeful he can take advantage of.