I personally don't care for the Aiken hype and I'd love to see a guy like Ventrone make the team for his versatility. But we need to look at numbers here.
QB- 3 Brady, Gutz, KOC
RB- 4/5 Maroney Morris Faulk Evans Jordan
WR- 5 Moss Gaffney Welker Jackson Washington
TE- 2 Watson Thomas
LT- 2 Light Britt
LG- 2 Mankins Hochstein
C- 1/2 Koppen Connolly
RG- 1/2 (3 when Neal returns) Flynn Yates Welbourn?
RT- 2 Kaczur O'Callahan
DL- 5/6 Seymour Warren Wilfork Wright Green (LK Smith?)
OLB- 4 Adalius Vrabel Woods Crable
ILB- 5 Bruschi Mayo Alexander Izzo Guyton
S- 5 Harrison Lynch Meriweather Spann Sanders
CB- 3 Hobbs Bryant Wheatley
plus K, P, LS
That's just a rough estimate but that comes to 51 guys. The limit is 53 and it doesn't include Aiken, or draft picks like Wilhite, Slater etc. It'll be very close, RV could easily be player #53, but on that top 51 list (give or take a Guyton/Alexander) I don't see anyone who would be cut in favor of Ray.
Like I said, I hope he makes it but it's really a number crunch at this point.
From what I've heard and seen, Connolly is more of a practice squad guy and doesn't look to be much more than a body for the sake of a body. What's he have that the other 3 centers don't? How about the other five guards? He seems redundant to me.
I think the roster will look something like this:
QB: 3; Brady, Cassel, O'Connell
RB/FB: 5
WR: 5; Moss, Welker, Gaffney, Jackson, Washington
TE: 2
OL: 9; Light, Mankins, Koppen, Kaczur, Hochstein, Welbourne, Flynn, Britt, O'Callaghan
DL: 6; Seymour, Wilfork, Warren, Green, Wright, Smith
LB: 8; Thomas, Mayo, Bruschi, Vrabel, Woods, Crable, Guyton, Alexander
DB: 9; Bryant, Harrison, Meriweather, Hobbs, Wheatley, Sanders, J. <strike>Tank</strike>Lynch, Spann, Wilhite
Gost Hanson Paxton: 3
Jack of all-trades, do-anything-for-the-team, special teams mavens: 2; Slater, Ventrone.
And there's one more spot left for a winner of "show me what you got." Give it to whoever the hell you want.
I'm assuming the worst for Aikens and Neal at this point, IR and PUP, respectively, but either would be easy to add to the roster if they were to become available.