Hooray!
If I understand what was said, its good news for good clubs, like the Pats.
The NFL has finally stripped away all the detritus of the past regarding the expansion of rosters.
Originally rosters were 36, that went to active 45 and inactive 2; and then to 47. All with taxi or practice squads of various sizes.
But many teams did not want to expand rosters further, in order to save money, and perhaps to force the distribution of talent and to prevent talent from being stockpiled on good clubs.
As a compromise, over time they went with an active 47 with an additional inactive group up to a max of 53 and a five man Practice squad.
There was subsequently compromised to allow an emergency QB (with some restrictions on his use) to in effect, add another active player.
As the season has lengthened, the need for larger teams is apparent. I was hoping the new CBA would merely strip away all the "active", "inactive", and "emergency QB" nonsense, and just establish a 53 man active roster.
Instead, they added three more positions to the Practice Squad to allow eight instead of five PS players. Now it appears another unannounced feature of the new CBA is a compromise to allow a full 53 member Team, if wanted, and an eight man PS.
But again some compromise was apparently necessary, so the inducement for the extra spending is the liberalizing of the PS rules in exchange for the 53 active team roster. Some teams up against the cap, can still have smaller squads that cost less (should they contract with their players for dual rate contracts payed at one rate if active, and a presumably lower rate if inactive)
