If you really think about it, roster cut day is basically one giant game of “please don’t touch my stuff.”
Every NFL team has players it doesn’t necessarily want to lose, but there are only 53 roster spots to go around. So, general managers cut guys they’d happily keep, send them through waivers or onto the open market, and hope no other team comes calling.
New York Giants general manager Joe Schoen apparently tried that trick twice on Sunday. It worked exactly zero times.
Schoen revealed Wednesday that the team hoped to bring linebackers Darius Muasau and Caleb Murphy back on the practice squad after cutting them Sunday. Neither made it back to East Rutherford, and they took two very different routes out of town.
Joe Schoen couldn’t sneak Darius Muasau or Caleb Murphy back onto Giants' practice squad
Muasau was always going to be one of the more interesting names to watch after the G-Men left him off their initial 53-man roster. He was seemingly as close to making Big Blue's as you could get.
The 2024 sixth-round pick appeared in 27 games with 18 starts over his first two seasons, finishing with 106 tackles and becoming a nice depth piece of New York’s defense. Unfortunately for him, the linebacker room's makeover left him as the odd-man out.
New York decided to take its chances with Muasau on waivers. New England had other ideas.
The Patriots claimed Muasau on Monday, immediately ending any hope Big Blue had of sneaking him back onto the P-Squad. And because apparently nobody in Foxborough can keep their grubby talons off former Giants players, Muasau became the latest Giants castoff to head north.
Murphy was a different story -- his might sting a little more because the G-Men actually got through the hard part.
Murphy cleared waivers, meaning no one took him, and he was free to sign anywhere, including back with the Giants, as Schoen apparently hoped he would. There was only one slight problem: Murphy also had to want to come back.
Instead, the 26-year-old reunited with John's brother, Jim Harbaugh, on the Los Angeles Chargers’ practice squad. Murphy already spent time with the Bolts, and his path to seeing the field in New York wasn’t exactly screaming opportunity, with Brian Burns, Abdul Carter, and Kayvon Thibodeaux dominating the pass-rushing snaps.
You can’t really blame him for going back to a place he knows. It also means Schoen went 0-for-2.
That’s the crummy part of trying to sneak players onto the practice squad. Sometimes another team steals them before you get the chance -- anyone remember Korie Black from last year's roster cuts? Sometimes they clear waivers and decide they’d rather go somewhere else.
Schoen rolled the dice on Muasau and Murphy, hoping both would eventually find their way back to North Jersey. Neither did. So much for “please don’t touch my stuff.”
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