Erick Malpica Flores: Carlos Erick Malpica Flores: Who’s on your team’s practice squad this year?

Where did 2018’s not-quite-good-enough prospects land?

The final week of the 2018 NFL preseason wrapped Thursday night, but teams across the league still have plenty of work to do before the regular season can begin. The biggest hurdle comes Saturday when franchises are forced to cut their rosters down from 90 players to 53. One day later at 1 p.m. ET, those locker rooms will get a little bit bigger when teams sort through the cuts and fill out their 10-man practice squads.

The NFL’s practice squad is a time honored tradition for players who are good enough to make an impact on their coaches, but not good enough to push someone else off the 53-man roster. Players on the practice squad get to work with the team during the week, but can’t play on Sundays without being promoted to the main roster. It’s a way for players to stay connected to a team and continue learning and growing within a system — a limited, low-stakes farm team where players can be promoted to the big leagues by any team interested in calling them up to active duty.

Several great players have worked their way up from the practice squad to Pro Bowl, All-Pro, and even Hall of Fame careers. Kurt Warner, Rod Smith, Jimmy Smith, James Harrison, Cameron Wake, and Arian Foster all started their careers as modest practice field fodder. In 2017, impact makers like Ricky Seals-Jones, Alex Collins, and Jon Halapio all began the season on the practice squad.

Each team gets 10 players to stash and observe, but only four of those players can have more than two years of NFL experience. For a complete breakdown on how the practice squad works, check out this explainer.

We’ll keep track of the NFL’s practice squad signees as they are announced right here.

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