The life of an NFL practice squad player explained

from the jaguars panthers cardinals some of that time as a practice squad player yeah how because again even as someone who follows nfl very closely you always feel like practice squad this practice squad that what exactly is the life of a practice squad player like and can you just describe the level of uncertainty whether it's being activated to the game day roster and then not just what is the life of a practice squad player like yeah it it can get unnecessarily complex so i'll try to keep it simple but um an active player meaning you're on the 53-man roster you you work you know uh monday through sunday a practice squad player really really only works on the practice days so like uh wednesday thursday friday saturday um you're not taking game reps you could be called up for a game if there's various injuries or whatever um like you're you are definitely a part of the team like you practice more than anybody and uh everybody knows who you are like you're like you're definitely part of the sorry go ahead do a locker yes okay yeah no you're 100 part of the team and you prepare for games as if you're going to play because you could get called up whenever but you're not taking the hits on sunday so like generally your body is in like slightly better shape oh they do they do run you into the ground at practice because they know you're not playing on sunday you know what i mean but um you know the nfl rosters are so small that even active players take reps with practice squad guys um i've done that my whole career because i've never been like the first position starter um i i was a little bit my second year but like even then because i was a young guy i when the defense was up i was hoping giving giving them reps you know what i mean so like as a young guy in the nfl unless you're drafted very high or very good like you're part of the practice squad in some ways the only the only thing different about actually being on the practice squad is there is some volatility roster wise like they may want to bring in a guy at a certain position and start him on the practice squad and there's only so many spots so somebody's got to go you know what i mean um the new cba that was signed in 2020 actually allows more players to be on the practice squad actually at my level of seniority on the old cba i wouldn't have even been able to be allowed to be on a practice squad so there's some pros and cons to that one of the pros is definitely like you can get your foot in the door sooner and start on the practice squad before being elevated to the active roster but uh but yeah it's i mean it's a good job you still make some money and you still get to play football and most of the time practice squad players will at some point get called up and get an opportunity to play so yeah it's not so bad yeah