Begin the Depth Chart Period!

With training camp just around the corner, I wanted to let you, the members of Mile High Report, get a chance to play head coach for a while and have some fun making your own depth chart. Normally this would take each member writing a post, but I figured since it's a bit early to really try and create accurate depth chart so today I wanted to present a tool that could help you out. This is a neat little thing created by Coty Saxman over at the Dallas Cowboys SB Nation site Blogging the Boys. He wrote the code for the whole thing and I just adjusted it with a little help from him, so a big shout out Coty.

Now once training camp is over I'll make a more official polling system that can be recorded, use this one to help you form your own depth chart ideas as well as have some fun playing head coach.

Depth Charts and Roster Making

Now it's not as easy as some think it is to make a depth chart. An NFL team has 53 players but going into training camp NFL teams are allowed to carry 90 players on their roster, that means they have to cut 37 players from their team. Now a few pointers to help you begin:

- Start off by cutting players who appear to just be training camp bodies
- Look for positions that are overly deep and cut a few players there
- Look at positions that may not need as many players (quarterback or long snapper)
- Don't forget you have the practice squad if you want to save a player
- There is a counter in the bottom left of the table which helps you keep track

Hopefully that will help you cut the first 15-20 players. Now comes the fun part, a few ideas for tweaking the roster:

- You might want to only carry two QB's so that you could have another RB or CB on the roster
- Move Syd'Quan Thompson or Champ Bailey to safety and cut Rahim Moore or Rafael Bush
- Move Julius Thomas to WR or move J.D. Walton to DT (Not saying all the ideas are good)
- You could move D.J. Williams or Von Miller to DE and move Robert Ayers to OLB

So a few fun ideas. You are free to move players from position to position as well as move them to the PUP and IR lists if you want to predict they'll get hurt (I'm putting Warren there for sure). Before we begin, here is Coty's introduction to the program:

To begin building your own Broncos' roster, you'll first have to click on the "Reset Everything!" button. If you make a mistake, this button will return everything to its original condition. To move players, click on the player to highlight him, and then click on the heading to which you wish to move him. Clicking on the red CUT cell will cut that player entirely. You can track your current roster count at the bottom left cell. Good luck getting to 53!

Now a quick point of clarification, if you want to move a player up in the depth chart, you have to move the players above him down. So take corner back, Champ Bailey is the #1 corner and that's fine, but you want to make Tracy Porter the #2 corner, to do that you will cut all the players you don't think will make the team first. After that you will click on whoever is the current #2 corner (say Omar Bolden) and then once his name is highlighted in green, click on the heading CB, that will move him to the bottom. Do the same will all the players in front of Porter till he's the #2 guy, do the same for the #3 and #4 spots as deep as you want. If you want to move a player to a new position (including IR, PUP and the practice squad), click on their name and then the new position, done. To cut a player, click on their name and go to the red Cut button and click that. Now if you mess up, just click the "Reset Everything!" button at the top.

The Depth Chart:

To begin building your own Broncos' roster, you'll first have to click on the "Reset Everything!" button. If you make a mistake, this button will return everything to its original condition. To move players, click on the player to highlight him, and then click on the heading to which you wish to move him. Clicking on the red CUT cell will cut that player entirely. You can track your current roster count at the bottom left cell. Good luck getting to 53!

Now have fun, share your last three cuts. What were the most painful decisions? What was your strategy? And, finally, what new features do you want to see added to this for the next version? Hopefully this will help you out a bit, if you want to post your depth charts, awesome, if you want to write whole post on it, even better. You can also come back here as training camp progresses and try it again.