What NFL roster cuts revealed on Tuesday: Vikings and Colts keep J.J. McCarthy, Anthony Richardson in place

NFL roster cutdowns are a quiet referendum on every position group. Once teams trim to 53 players, they are forced to declare who they trust for immediate fall-week certainty and who they can afford to keep developing on the depth chart. In that sense, the most revealing cuts are rarely the surprise names alone, but the absence of moves that would have shocked fans if a team truly wanted to change direction.

One of the clearest themes in CBS Sports’ review is that two quarterbacks whose seasons and camps have drawn extra attention are still on their teams after cut day. The report says J.J. McCarthy and Anthony Richardson “stay put,” a detail that matters because both quarterbacks carry high expectations tied to their draft profiles and the developmental arcs teams build around them.

For the Vikings, the post-cut picture matters for how the organization structures its quarterback room week to week. Even without additional roster-decision details beyond the QB “stay put” outcome, the decision to keep McCarthy suggests Minnesota is comfortable retaining its preferred long-term plan rather than using cut day to open a path to a different, immediate contingency behind its starters.

For the Colts, Richardson’s situation functions similarly, but with a different set of stakes. A team’s quarterback depth is not only about who can throw accurately, it is also about how an offense protects itself across different game scripts, and what a coaching staff believes it can develop in practice. Keeping Richardson on the 53 indicates Indianapolis values his presence as more than a swing option, even as the roster shrinks.

What we can reasonably take from a roster-cut analysis is that teams report their internal confidence through restraint. If coaches believed the quarterback room was too thin or too uncertain, the cutdown process is where you often see those beliefs made operational, whether through promoting a deeper option, changing who holds the primary backup responsibilities, or reshaping the room around a different skill set.

There are limits to what roster cuts can tell you, however. A player can “stay put” and still not be guaranteed a meaningful role early in the season. Teams frequently rely on practice performance, matchup planning, and the reliability of lower-leverage backups to decide how they use each quarterback as the calendar flips from August into September.

For fans and teams alike, the next step is what happens after cut day: how often each quarterback works with first-team groups during the final week of preparation, how play-calling changes in two-minute and red-zone situations, and who earns the consistent reps that tend to precede actual in-game opportunities.