Ex-Broncos Tight End Shares Story Highlighting Brutal Reality Of NFL Roster Cuts

Most sports fans view their favorite pastimes as a form of entertainment, but it’s impossible to ignore the fact that the teams you root for (and the leagues they belong to) are a business more than anything else.

As someone who literally cried on multiple occasions after seeing some of my favorite players traded to another franchise as a kid, I’m very familiar with the emotional toll that tends to accompany those kinds of transactions.

With that said, I’m well aware I have nothing on the players who’ve seen their lives turned upside down in the blink of an eye after ending up at the center of one of those “business decisions.”

That includes the many guys who’ve had to grapple with the possibility their dream of playing in the NFL has been extinguished after failing to make the final roster ahead of the regular season.

If you’re a football fan, you’re likely familiar with the rules that require franchises to gradually narrow down the number of players allowed to participate in training camp, and while roster cuts have been a staple of the Hard Knocks franchise, those clips only provide a little bit of insight into the harsh reality hundreds of players end up facing each year.

Retired tight end Jacob Tamme recently shut some light on that anxiety-inducing process in a Twitter thread where he used the wave of layoffs that have flooded Silicon Valley to recount what it was like to be a member of the Denver Broncos when roster cuts were being announced.

He acknowledged every team handles things differently, as the Colts apparently gave guys the day off when culling their ranks when he was playing in Indianapolis.

The Broncos, on the other hand, preferred to do things in person, which he noted has the potential to introduce some incredibly uncomfortable energy into the facility.

Tamme said the coaches at the time stretched out the cuts over the course of the day, which also made things pretty awkward in the weight room.

He also gave props to Peyton Manning for taking a stand against the staffers tasked with breaking the bad news.

That’s the kind of leader you want on your team.