October 2 is when NFL rosters stop lying to you. Three teams made moves today, and only one of them matters on Sunday.
Denver released WR Lil'Jordan Humphrey. The reflex is to file that under "guy can't play." The better read is arithmetic. When a team cuts a veteran receiver in early October, it usually means the young guys at the bottom of the room have claimed the game-day spots, and Humphrey's value was always at that bottom, where blocking and special teams decide who dresses. Denver just bet on cheaper, younger legs. My prediction: Humphrey is on a roster or a practice squad within two weeks, and if Denver loses a receiver to injury this month, his number is the first one the front office dials. Cutting a guy you can bring back is not the same as giving up on him.
Los Angeles did the busiest work: waived WR Xavier Smith, signed WR Alex Bachman and DE Larrell Murchison to the active roster, and placed TE Terrance Ferguson on injured reserve. Two of those three are noise. Swapping Smith for Bachman is a bottom-of-the-depth-chart reshuffle, the kind every team makes in October when the coverage units need a different flavor. Murchison is the interesting one, because signing a defensive end straight to the active roster in Week 5 is a depth admission. Teams don't burn an active spot on an edge rusher unless they're worried about the bodies they already have there. But the move that actually hurts is Ferguson. Tight end is a position where most rosters carry three and dress two, and IR removes one of them for at least four games. If the Rams had plans to run more two-tight-end sets, those plans just got thinner.
The Giants swapped practice squad pieces, signing C Kendrick Green and releasing T Darian Kinnard. I'll say the unpopular thing: most practice squad churn is meaningless and anyone drawing a conclusion from it is overreading. But there's one real signal in this pair. A center in and a tackle out suggests New York believes its tackle depth is settled and its interior is one injury away from a problem. Centers are also the guys who run scout-team looks against opposing fronts, so Green has a job Monday morning either way. Kinnard is the one who should be nervous. Released from a practice squad in October means you're now competing against every other available tackle in the league for a call that may never come.
Rank the three: Ferguson to IR is the only transaction that costs a team something on game day. The Rams lost a tight end for a month and replaced him with nothing at the position. Denver and New York both made moves that are reversible by Thanksgiving. That's the difference between managing a roster and patching one. NerdDawg's verdict: Los Angeles downgraded today, Denver made a bet it can undo, and the Giants did paperwork. If you only remember one thing from October 2, remember the Rams are now thinner at tight end than they were yesterday, and October is a bad month to be thin anywhere.
