When the Turk comes a knockin'.(how football teams reduce their rosters)(Brief Article)

For a two-week period each year in late summer, NFL players, who generally are a resilient and tough-minded group, are reduced to bundles of insecurity and nervousness while waiting to hear if their names make the final roster.

It's cut down time in the NFL. Time for the Turk.

Who is this Turk? He is the individual assigned by the organization to go to a player's room, knock on his door and utter those dreaded words: "The coach wants to see you--and bring your playbook." In short, the Turk is the NFL version of the Grim Reaper.

The Turk's first major appearance came this week, when teams had to trim their rosters to 65 players. Because most teams come to camp with 80 players, that means on Tuesday (the first cut down day), there were 465 pretty good football players out of work. Among that group, a few probably will end up as standouts someday.

Titans tight end Frank Wishek (cut by Redskins, 1995) and Rams quarterback Kurt Warner (cut by Packers, 1994) are examples of successful players who experienced the agony of having the Turk knock on their doors. Wychek went on to become a Pro Bowl selection, and Warner became a league and Super Bowl MVP.

The first cut is significant because the players who a team wants to sign to its practice squad (each team can carry five) usually are trimmed during this time. The reason is simple: If you already have determined that a player will not make your active roster but is a good candidate for the practice squad, you don't want him around for the last week of camp because you don't want to showcase him to other teams. By cutting a potential practice-squad player at this point, you are trying to hide the player while hoping another team does not add him to its active roster.

Next comes the final cut. All 31 teams must pare their rosters to 53 active players by 4 p.m. ET Sunday. And teams can't sign their five practice-squad players until the next day, after all the teams have had 24 hours to decide if they want to add any of the available players to their active rosters.