RESOLVING THE LEDGER
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Hello football friends, and welcome to the Thursday edition of the Pick Six newsletter!
Today is the start of what should be a wild weekend in the NFL , so buckle up. The final week of the preseason is here and it starts tonight with four games. We also have 10 games on Friday and two games on Saturday, but you won't be getting a breather after that, because Sunday is cut day. That's right, cut day is happening on a Sunday.
Over the past few years, final cuts have been held on the first Tuesday after the final week of the preseason, but this year, all 32 teams will have to trim their roster down to 53 players by 6 p.m. ET on Sunday. So not only are we getting 16 games this weekend, but we're also going to see nearly 1,200 players get released.
Before we get to cut day, though, we have a lot to cover today, starting with the fact that the Pro Bowl has been CANCELED. I will mostly miss the Pro Bowl because it gave us my favorite sideline interview of all time: Back in 2003, Peyton Manning famously called Mike Vanderjagt an "Idiot kicker" (You can see the interview here ). Alright, that's enough of that, let's get to the rundown.
The NFL owners don't usually hold a league meeting in August, but they added one to the schedule this year so that they could formally approve Vinod Khosla as the new owner of the Seattle Seahawks . That was supposed to be the biggest announcement to come from Wednesday's meeting, but then things got a little crazy.
The NFL ended up making several big announcements yesterday and we're going to cover all of them below.
In other news, Goodell said that the arrest of 49ers owner Jed York is currently under review by the league. "Yes, it's being reviewed under the personal conduct policy," Goodell said of the arrest . "We'll do that and when there's something to be reported, we'll talk."
Oh, and the owners did approve Khosla's $9.612 billion purchase of the team, but that was mostly an afterthought after everything else that happened yesterday.
It's been a busy week for Tyler Sullivan and Jordan Dajani, and I know that, because the two of them decided to sift through all 32 rosters in the NFL so that they could rank them from best to worst. Not only did they rank each roster, but they listed one good thing, one bad thing and one question that needs to be answered for each team.
So who has the best roster in the NFL? Let's check out their top three.
This entire ranking was so big that we actually had to separate it into two stories. You can see the top half (1 through 16) of the ranking here and we've got the bottom half here (Spoiler alert: The Dolphins are at the bottom).
With NFL cut day coming up on Sunday, we'll likely see several trades go down between now and then. The reason we so many deals happen is two-fold: For one, any team that has a talented player who they're being forced to cut will shop him around so they can try and get some compensation for him. The other reason we see multiple trades in the lead up to cut day is because you'll have a situation where Team A is eyeing a player on Team B's roster. If Team B cuts the player, that player is subjected to waivers and he might get claimed before Team A can get him, so making a trade for the player makes more sense.
With that in mind, Bryan DeArdo came up with a list of several players who might be dealt between now and Sunday:
DeArdo included a total of 10 players on his list of trade candidates and if you want to know who might be on the move this weekend, be sure to check out this full story here .
With cut day coming up, we also decided to take a look at 20 big names that could be released this weekend. The list includes Odell Beckham Jr . and if you want to know who else is in danger of being released, you can find out here .
In less than two weeks, Pete Prisco is going to release his first Power Rankings of the season, but until then, we have to find other things to rank, so that's what we're going to do today. Zach Pereles ranked the NFL's eight divisions and you probably won't be surprised by the one that ended up coming out on top.
Let's check out the three most difficult divisions based on Zach's ranking.
1. NFC West. The NFC West went 29-15 against non-division opponents last year, the best mark in the NFL, and it went 4-1 against the NFC North, including playoffs. So, yes, while the Cardinals won't be very good this year, there might be three NFC West teams better than the best NFC North team.
2. NFC North. First off, let me get this out in the open for the fans of NFC North teams who won't like this (still very high) ranking: The NFC North is awesome. It is incredible that four teams, all with clear flaws, posted winning records last year. And it could be awesome again. But, when comparing it to the only division ahead of it, I see more clear flaws from its legitimate playoff contenders.
3. AFC West. Someone other than the Chiefs finally won this division last year, with the Broncos ending Kansas City's nine-year run. With the Chargers also making the playoffs, the AFC West had two playoff teams for the fourth time in the last five years. Expect that to become five times in six years.
If you want to see where the five other divisions landed in Zach's ranking, you'll have to check out his full story here .
Earlier this week, we unveiled our All-Breakout Team for the offensive side of the ball , and now, we're going to do the defensive side. We rounded up 13 NFL experts here at CBS Sports, and we all voted on the top breakout candidates for the 2026 season.
Here are several defensive players who we think you need to keep an eye on this season:
ALL-BREAKOUT TEAM EDGE: Abdul Carter (Giants) EDGE: Dallas Turner (Vikings) CB: Travis Hunter ( Jaguars ) CB: Nohl Williams (Chiefs) S: Malachi Starks ( Ravens ) S: Kevin Winston ( Titans )
To me, cornerback is probably the most interesting position here. After trading away Trent McDuffie and letting Jaylen Watson walk in free agen...
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