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New Camp Roster Limit Will Dash Some Dreams

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The Tampa Tribune

Published: August 3, 2008

LAKE BUENA VISTA - Training Camp 2008 is a week old, and Bucs coach Jon Gruden is still not a fan of the NFL's new 80-man training camp roster limit. You don't have to dig too deep to find out why.

Scroll through the Bucs' depth chart until you get to the fullbacks. There, behind projected starter B.J. Askew, is Byron Storer. He probably wouldn't be there had the current 80-man limit been in place a year ago.

Storer was one of about two dozen undrafted free agents signed by the Bucs last spring. He never would have made it past One Buc Place had the 80-man limit been in place, but since it wasn't, the Bucs took him to camp.

No one really expected Storer to shine there, and to be honest, he really didn't. There was something about him, though, that the Bucs liked and they held on to him until they made their final cuts.

One day after letting him go, the Bucs got Storer back by signing him to the practice squad. By mid-October they had added him to their 53-man roster. By mid-December he was starting for them at fullback.

Storer isn't expected to start this year, not as long as Askew is healthy. But the Bucs know that if Askew goes down they have a backup on the rise who can fill in for him in the 6-foot-1, 219-pound Storer.

They wouldn't have known that if Storer hadn't been allowed to go to training camp last year. That's what really bugs not only Gruden but Bucs general manager Bruce Allen about the 80-man roster limit.

It's not that it makes it harder to put together a practice script. It's that someone like Storer is out there right now, sitting at home, waiting for an opportunity to start a career that may never come.

"It's not the schedule," Gruden said. "We can adjust our schedule if we have 14 players. But not affording guys opportunities, I don't know how anybody else feels, but I find that disappointing."

The new limit is in place largely because of the abolishment of NFL Europe, the developmental league made up mostly of NFL prospects. As a payback for filling Europe's rosters, NFL teams were given training camp roster exemptions.

Depending on how many players an NFL team allocated to NFL Europe, it could receive as many as 10 exemptions. That meant 10 extra bodies in camp. With the demise of NFL Europe, however, the exemptions are gone. So are the bodies.

The Bucs fought adoption of the rule last offseason, and they plan to fight it again following the 2008 season. Their hope is the league will increase the roster limit to 90 players.

Their chances of winning are slim, but there is a chance. The NFL Management Council asked for an 86-man roster, so someone is on their side. NFL owners balked, though, and kept the limit at 80, with no exemptions.

The reason, some say, is financial. Multiply 10 players times 17 days in a hotel like the Celebration Hotel plus meals, and everything else that goes into having a player on your roster and the cost adds up quickly.

The fight is not over, though. NFL Europe is not coming back, but an 86- or 90-man camp roster will almost certainly become a part of any new collective bargaining agreement.

Between now and then, though, teams will suffer, and bubble players like Byron Storer will find it hard, if not impossible, to realize their dream of playing in the NFL. What a pity.

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