The San Francisco 49ers just finished up their final preseason game against the Las Vegas Raiders and now will be scrambling to make final roster cuts to the 53-man roster. We say scrambling because the team needs to get on a plane to Melbourne, Australia, to play the Los Angeles Rams in Week 1. With that in mind, they need to figure out who is and isn’t going so they can make travel arrangements.
Over at FanDuel Sportsbook, the 49ers are currently sitting as 3.5-point underdogs in their game against the Rams. Since the game is in Australia, not in San Francisco or Los Angeles, it’s safe to say many of those odds were initially set based on the rosters.
While the 49ers are a bit more urgent, all NFL teams will be trimming their rosters from 90 to 53 in the coming days. The deadline to have a 53-man roster is Sunday, August 30 at 3:00 PM PST.
Those cut are either released outright or waived—depending on their time in the league. There are a few wrinkles in 2026 the 49ers can take advantage of. First is IR.
If a player is placed on IR, two players can be tagged as designated to return and can come back after missing at least four games. Teams must tag a player in this category, however. They can’t pick and choose players later in the season after putting them on IR months earlier. Any other players placed on IR (READ: Ricky Pearsall) are done for the year.
Then there’s the physically unable to perform or PUP list. If a player is on this list, it means they were placed on it before the season began. The moment they practice or play in even a preseason game, they are off the PUP list. Any players on PUP are subject to the same four-game minimum as one on IR. The difference is that PUP players didn’t practice or play in the preseason.
Players with at least four years of experience are released and become unrestricted free agents. They can go anywhere and sign with any team. No restrictions. Those under the four-year threshold are subject to waivers and the waiver wire. The following players have been, or are associated with, the 49ers’ 90-man roster this year and are subject to waivers:
QB Kurtis Rourke
QB Adrian Martinez
RB Kaelon Black
RB Jordan James
RB Sincere McCormick
WR De’Zhaun Stribling
WR Jacob Cowing
WR Jordan Watkins
WR Wesley Grimes
WR Will Pauling
TE Brayden Willis
TE Hayden Rucci
TE Khalil Dinkins
OG Dominick Puni
OG Connor Colby
OL Carver Willis
OL Drake Nugent
OL Enrique Cruz Jr.
OL Isaac Alarcon
DL Romello Height
DL Alfred Collins
DL Gracen Halton
DL CJ West
DL Sebastian Valdez
DL James Thompson Jr.
DL Bryson Eason
DL Evan Anderson
LB Jaden Dugger
LB Tatum Bethune
LB Nick Martin
LB Larry Worth III
CB Renardo Green
CB Upton Stout
CB Ephesians Prysock
CB Jakob Robinson
S Malik Mustapha
S Patrick McMorris
S Marques Sigle
S Jalen Stroman
On waivers, teams can claim players, but the order is determined by the draft order from earlier this year. The 49ers picked 27 (or at least their pick was 27, since they traded it to the Miami Dolphins), so they will be the 27th team to make a selection. So if there’s any player on waivers they want, then they have to wait for 26 other teams to decide they don’t want that specific player. Any team that makes a waiver claim must open a roster spot to keep the roster at 53 players. If the player is claimed, another player is waived/released in return.
Also, this isn’t like fantasy football; a team can’t place four waiver claims in order of importance and get only one before things switch to the next team. Any team can make multiple claims, and if they’re ahead of the 49ers, they can get all the players the 49ers may want—provided the team has opened roster spots for those players. That means the Las Vegas Raiders and New York Jets can be much more active on the waiver wire than the Seattle Seahawks, who go last due to winning the Super Bowl.
The current waiver order is as follows:
Las Vegas Raiders
New York Jets
Arizona Cardinals
Tennessee Titans
New York Giants
Cleveland Browns
Washington Commanders
New Orleans Saints
Kansas City Chiefs
Cincinnati Bengals
Miami Dolphins
Dallas Cowboys
Atlanta Falcons
Baltimore Ravens
Tampa Bay Buccaneers
Indianapolis Colts
Detroit Lions
Minnesota Vikings
Carolina Panthers
Green Bay Packers
Pittsburgh Steelers
Los Angeles Chargers
Philadelphia Eagles
Jacksonville Jaguars
Chicago Bears
Buffalo Bills
San Francisco 49ers
Houston Texans
Los Angeles Rams
Denver Broncos
New England Patriots
Seattle Seahawks
The 49ers have a lot of waiting to do if they want any hot players that couldn’t fit on any of the teams before them. That said, the teams before them need to do a lot of roster reshuffling. The one thing to take from all of this is that the 53-man roster you see on Monday isn’t going to be the same 53-man roster you see on Tuesday or Wednesday.