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By 4 p.m. eastern time on Tuesday August 27th, the Chicago Bears and the other 31 teams around the league will have gone through the devastating annual process of cutting their preseason rosters in dramatic fashion down from 90 players to just 53. That means that the NFL dreams of somewhere in the neighborhood of 900 players will at best be briefly put on hold, while some will be extinguished forever. It's the nature of the cruel and unforgiving business side of the sport that we love so much.
With that August 27th deadline now just three days away, the Bears are getting a jump start on the unavoidable, announcing two of their first cuts on Saturday afternoon.
“The Bears have started paring their roster down to 53 players,” writes Josh Alper of Pro Football Talk. “The team announced that they have released tight end Tommy Sweeney and waived defensive lineman Keith Randolph on Saturday.” This pair of moves comes shortly after the Bears placed Douglas Coleman, Ian Wheeler and Nsimba Webster on season-ending injured reserve.
In all actuality, neither Keith Randolph or Tommy Sweeney is an overly controversial or surprising cut. Randolph is an in-state product who was a 3-star recruit playing high school ball in Belleville, and then he went to college at the University of Illinois where he was twice named an All Big Ten 3rd Team selection. He signed with the Bears as an undrafted free agent back in April, and while there was certainly an avenue for an undrafted free agent to emerge and steal a roster spot along the defensive line, Randolph didn't get the opportunities he needed to make enough of a mark. He finished the preseason with just two tackles.
Tommy Sweeney, on the other hand, made a bit more of a splash in the preseason. The 2019 7th round pick caught nine passes throughout the preseason, including two for touchdowns: one from Austin Reed in the 4th quarter against not one, but two Andy Reid's and the Kansas City Chiefs this past Thursday, and one from Brett Rypien in the Hall of Fame Game. Even the most optimistic outlook for Sweeney would've pegged him probably as the 3rd tight end on the depth chart behind Cole Kmet and Gerald Everett. When the Bears signed well-respected veteran Marcedes Lewis all but sealed Sweeney's fate.
