News: BTB: 2017 Dallas Cowboys roster: Hard cuts ahead to reach 53-man roster limit by Saturday

[NewsBot]

Players number 56, 55, and 54 are always the hardest cuts en route to the 53-man roster. Who will those players be this year?

The Dallas Cowboys and all other NFL teams have to reduce their roster to the mandated 53 players by 4:00 pm ET on Saturday.

Over the last few days, the Cowboys have already dropped some hints about what that final roster could look like.

• Jerry Jones said it’s "very likely" the Cowboys will keep all three quarterbacks on the 53-man roster.
• Stephen Jones hinted Anthony Hitchens might not be put on IR after all, but might sit out his injury on the 53-man roster.
• The Cowboys' recent interest in Kony Ealy and Joe Haden suggests the last spots on the depth chart at corner and defensive end may not be quite as secure as some may have previously thought.

But that still leaves a lot of unanswered questions at many other positions. Will the Cowboys go long or short at WR, O-line, DE, LB, or CB? Will they place TE Rico Gathers on IR, as Bryan Broaddus recently indicated? And does anybody know how Ezekiel Elliott's status will impact the roster?

Lots of questions, lots of potential answers. But today, instead of trying to answer all those questions, we'll ask you to put on your GM hat and construct your very own version of the 2017 Dallas Cowboys roster.

You can do that with our trusty roster builder, a tool that allows you to whittle down the roster from 90 to 53 players, build a practice squad, change player positions and generally live out your GM fantasies.

For those of you who've used the Roster Builder before it will have a familiar look and feel to it.

For everybody else: Click the button below to launch the program (it will open in a new tab/window). To get started, click on 'Reset Everything' in the new window to load the most up-to-date roster into the tool. The tool will show you all the names currently on the roster. Also, you'll probably have to keep this window open for the Roster Builder to work in the other window.

To move players, click on the player to highlight him, and then click on the heading to which you wish to move him (e.g. Practice Squad, IR/Susp, etc.). Clicking on the red CUT cell, or pressing the delete key will cut that player entirely. You can track your current roster count at the bottom left of the roster.

If you make a mistake, the "Reset Everything!" button will return everything to its original condition.

And do us a favor: Tell us in the comments section who your last three cuts were (Players 56, 55, and 54). Those are likely going to be the hardest cuts you'll have to make.

Good luck getting to 53!

Dallas Cowboys Interactive Roster Builder​

Sorry, but your browser does not support JavaScript.

As a point of reference for your roster, here's what the season-opening 53-man rosters have looked like in the past:

Years​

QB​

RB​

WR​

TE​

FB​

OL​

DL​

LB​

CB​

S​

Specialists
2016​

3​

4​

5​

3​

2​

8​

8​

7​

5​

5​

3
2015​

2​

4​

5​

4​

1​

9​

10​

6​

5​

4​

3
2014​

3​

3​

5​

3​

1​

9​

11​

7​

4​

4​

3
2013​

2​

4​

5​

4​

- -​

10​

10​

6​

4​

5​

3​

​

Note: This program was written in JavaScript. If your browser does not support JavaScript, you will be informed of that below. In general, Internet Explorer is non-compatible, while Chrome and Firefox are compatible.

Practice Squad: You can put up to 10 guys on the practice squad. Unfortunately, the tool will only show eight. Also, all players with two years experience are now marked as PS eligible, even though only a maximum of four of those guys (with two accrued seasons) can be added to the PS – but I trust the BTB users to be able to make that distinction.

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