The Minnesota Vikings and Atlanta Falcons have made their final roster moves prior to the regular season opening weekend of September 10 and left Germany’s Moritz Böhringer and Anthony Dable from France out in the cold.
As announced earlier, neither Böhringer nor Dable made the 53 man rosters of their respective teams. But both teams have announced their practice squads and neither player made the cut there either.
Böhringer who was on the Vikings practice squad for the 2016 season after being drafted in the sixth round of the 2016 NFL Draft, did not see much action in the preseason despite made improvements in training camp. He caught one pass in the final preseason game of the year. Minnesota announced their 2017 practice squad and Böhringer is not on it.
No practice squad for Moritz Bohringer, it doesn't look like for #Vikings. The Bohringer experiment is over.
— Chris Tomasson (@christomasson) September 1, 2017
Anthony Dable, the French wide receiver, seemed to be more likely to make the Falcons practice squad. The 6’4″, 220 lb wideout saw a good deal of action in the preseason for the Falcons and in the first two preseason games was among the top receivers in terms of snap counts. In other words, the number of snaps he was on the field. He caught a total of seven passes for 88 yards and was on the field usually early in games.
Nevertheless, he was not included in Atlanta’s announced 10 man practice squad. The only international players left are British defensive lineman Jack Crawford who has made the Falcon’s game roster, and tight end Alex Gray who has an international exemption. Gray is part of the NFL’s International Player Pathway program, a new venture where each team in the NFC South gets an additional roster spot to be filled with a player from overseas. That player will spend the 2017 season on the practice squad, so they won’t be able to play in any games. The idea is to grow the game of football outside the United States; and for teams, it’s a chance to try and find talent in unexpected places..
Crawford was a fifth round pick of the Oakland Raiders in 2012 and has played for both Oakland and the Dallas Cowboys before signing with Atlanta.
Massive Danish offensive lineman Andreas Knappe was also a casualty along with Norwegian/American quarterback Alek Torgersen. Knappe tweeted his thanks for the opportunity.
I want to thank every person in the Atlanta Falcons organization for all the energy and effort… https://t.co/LWgmLqNXlr
— Andreas Emil Knappe (@Thegreatdane02) September 3, 2017
What’s next for Böhringer and Dable? Dable was in the same situation a year ago, after being cut by the New York Giants. He had a tryout with the New England Patriots before landing with Atlanta. For Böhringer , this is new territory and it remains to be seen as to whether his agent can do a good job shopping him around or whether Böhringer himself decides to head home to Germany.
Hopefully for both, this is still only the start and they can land somewhere else.