Manase Tonga Among Cuts as Raiders Slim Roster to 75
After reports trickled in on Sunday of a few impending cuts, the Oakland Raiders have officially announced their list of players that have been waived in order to reduce the roster to the league mandated maximum of 75 active players. The cuts were as follows:
LB Korey Bosworth, DE Mason Brodine, DE Wayne Dorsey, S Aaron Henry, CB Terrail Lambert, WR Thomas Mayo, WR DeAundre Muhammad, QB Kyle Newhall-Caballero, S Chaz Powell and FB Manase Tonga. The team also waived-injured FB Rashawn Jackson and OL Ed Wang.
The only player of note on the list is Manase Tonga who played in 8 games last season, starting 3 of those in place of an injured Marcel Reece. Tonga had spent his time prior to that on the team’s practice squad. It was not, however, a big surprise to see Tonga go after the team picked up former 5th round pick of the Seattle Seahawks, and nicknamed Runaway Beertruck, Owen Schmitt. The free agent out of Seattle has a familiarity with the offense being implemented, so Tonga’s only chance to make the squad would have been if the Raiders had decided to carry 3 fullbacks, and that just wasn’t going to happen.
The second year player out of BYU carried the ball once in 2011 for 12 yards, and added 3 receptions totaling 18 yards as a Raider.
Although there are plenty of guys that are relieved to still be on the team, it is only a temporary reprieve for them, as the final cutdown to 53 is only a few days away. Teams must have their list of 53 active players in to the league by Friday 6p.m. (PST). Although it seems like a huge amount of people being cut on Friday going from 75 to 53, keep in mind that Aaron Curry may not count against that number (dependent on whether he is placed on the regular season PUP list), and the fact that the team will be keeping an additional 8 players on the practice squad.
As uneventful as the cut down from the 87 the Raiders had on the roster, to the 75 active today was, look for Friday’s cuts to have at least one or two surprises for the Raider Nation. Stay tuned as we bring you all the latest here.
Loading ...
1 Comment