Why only 45 on the active roster? Why not all 53?

With today's NFL and the injuries that take place on Sunday's, why can teams only have 45 players suit up instead of the full 53 man roster? :?: :?: :?:

Greenhell":2n7bs5gy said:

With today's NFL and the injuries that take place on Sunday's, why can teams only have 45 players suit up instead of the full 53 man roster? :?: :?: :?:

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Not saying I agree with it, but the most common reasoning I hear for this is that some teams will have a few injured players who cannot play that game but aren't hurt enough to put on IR, and to make sure each team has an equal number of healthy players playing in a given day, they have the inactive list. Sort of like a temporary place to hold injured players and when you don't have 8 injured you put your least needed players on to fill the list and then you get each team's best 45. They believe that is better than some teams having a healthy 51 while another has a healthy 49 players.


Personally, I think they should have multiple reserve lists for injured players to sit on with varying lengths of time and have every player not on these lists be active. This would likely mean more players being signed from practice squads when a player gets hurt, while also meaning more players going through waivers as other players return from injury. It would likely be a positive for guys like Pete and John who like to pull guys from out of nowhere.