re: Why does the 53 man roster limit exist in NFL?

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to threaten the guys who are good enough to make the 53 man roster. Doesn't make a lick of sense to me. More roster spots = a better chance that you make the roster.

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Well, we were talking about camp rosters vs the 53 man. Also, you can't leave out the compensation aspect of increasing the 53 man.

But I'll devise a scenario.

Players aren't 100% interchangeable and teams differentiate how they want to allocate the 53 players between OL, DL, QB etc. Also, players are not separated by miles in ability. Someone "good enough" to make the 53 man isn't obviously better than someone who didn't, either playing the same position or another.

Say a team has 53 players and has 5 DL and 5 OL. You are a DL. The 53 man roster goes to 55 players. The team adds 2 DL.

Now, these 2DL are on the 55 man roster and didn't leave when camp ended. They wouldn't have been on the 53 man roster last year and would have went home in August.

October rolls around.

The team needs to add a player at a different position for some reason.

What just happened to you if those 2 looked better because they had more time on the roster? They wouldn't have had the chance. The team couldn't afford to take the flier on their development before.

Not every variable goes down 1 just because another variable went up 1. Complex systems don't work like that.

In this scenario, the 55 man roster was good for the two new players and bad for one. This is the balancing act that is occurring. All happening at once with many competing interests.