San Francisco 49ers: Predicting 53-man roster after 2020 NFL Draft

With the 2020 NFL Draft in the books and teams like the 49ers beginning to fill out their 90-man offseason rosters, now seems like an appropriate time to take the first stab at predicting the 53-man regular-season roster for San Francisco.

Over the course of the next few months, the San Francisco 49ers, like teams in the rest of the NFL, will be making key decisions about who will be on the final roster on Sept. 5.

The approval of the new Collective Bargaining Agreement back in March made several changes that impact the 2020 NFL season, but there are a few which specifically impact roster decisions via roster expansion.

According to ESPN’s Dan Graziano, “The game-day active roster will increase from 46 to 48 players (although one of the extra players must be an offensive lineman, which will give teams more flexibility to have three extra linemen),” and perhaps more interestingly:

"Two practice-squad players per week may be elevated to the team’s roster, meaning game-week roster sizes could effectively increase from 53 to 55. And a player elevated from the practice squad to the 55-man roster could be sent back to the practice squad two times without having to clear waivers."

So that’s why we’re projecting the modified 53-man roster, opposed to the old “tried and true” 53-man version, with two of the players coming in the form of practice squad players who could find themselves called up at times throughout the season as needed.

The math will look a little funny then, but I’ll indicate the two players who I’m projecting in those final two slots with an asterisk, which of course could be quite fluid as the season goes along.

Like with many things about the upcoming NFL season, there is a great deal of uncertainty.