What cut week is like at the bottom of an NFL roster

INDIANAPOLIS — Chase Coffman has spent the past month living out of a suitcase in a vacation rental home. No need to look for an apartment. No need to unpack, really. His job prospects could vanish with a phone call.

This has been his August for seven years now. Airports. Hotels. Locker rooms. Playbooks. Pink slips. Phone calls. New hotels. New locker rooms. New playbooks. More pink slips. It’s the tense, trying existence of a player holding on for dear life at the basement of an NFL roster, where jobs are churned through like turnstiles and lives are uprooted on a daily basis.

Coffman is, for now, an Indianapolis Colts tight end. He knows that could soon change. It can always change. Welcome to the final week of the NFL preseason, also known as “The General Manager Wants To See You” Week. Teams are required to trim their roster from 90 to 75 by Tuesday and from 75  to 53 by Saturday.

All told, 1,184 players will be cut. Coffman could be one of them.

“Those thoughts are hard to ignore,” he said.

Coffman is an NFL vagabond, willing to scrape for a spot until they tell him there are no more spots to scrape for. He’s been waived nine times in eight years. He’s been signed 14 times by five different teams. The Colts could be his last shot. Heck, it can always be his last shot.

He was home, in Peculiar, Mo., in late July, wondering if he’d even play football this season. Then the phone rang. On the first day of training camp, the Colts learned that running back Tyler Varga had abruptly decided to retire. They had an available roster spot. They wanted a tryout. So Coffman packed a suitcase and headed for Anderson and worked out for the team that day. He’s been living out of that suitcase ever since.

This week could be the end.

“There’s really nothing you can control besides being prepared for the game,” Coffman said. “And if you don’t get in the game, and you get cut tomorrow, you just keep going, keep going forward. Whether that’s with football or with something else.”

Something else — he knows his time in this league is running out. But he’ll keep going, keep pushing forward. That’s what Coffman’s done, from Cincinnati to Tampa Bay to Atlanta to Tennessee to Seattle to Indianapolis.

For bottom-of-the-roster dwellers such as Coffman, the final week of the preseason isn’t just a tryout for the Indianapolis Colts. It’s for 31 other teams. There are 320 practice squad spots available; 10 per team. And then there are injuries, which cost some players a season and offer others the opportunity they need.

Tay Glover-Wright is another Colt whose job is on the line this week. The second-year cornerback out of Utah State wasn’t thrilled with what he put on tape in Saturday’s 33-23 preseason loss to the Eagles. “Not my best effort,” he said. But on his side this week: The fact that the Colts are paper thin at his position. Vontae Davis is down. Patrick Robinson, for the time being. Darius Butler tweaked an ankle Saturday.

Simply put: The Colts need bodies.

Thursday’s preseason finale in Cincinnati, the annual backup bowl, will go a long way in determining who those bodies are.

“You try not to think about it,” Glover-Wright said of impending cuts. “But every day is a job interview.”

That’s what Konrad Reuland was saying Saturday night. Like Coffman, there’s little the reserve tight end hasn’t seen in this league. He’s been waived seven times since entering the NFL in 2012; one team, the Baltimore Ravens, signed him six times and cut him four times over the course of 14 months. His life became a revolving door.

“A crazy life,” Reuland said. “I’ve had injuries at the wrong time. I’ve been cut at the end of camp. I’ve made the team at the end of camp. You just never know.”

Reuland was cut Monday morning. Make that eight times since entering the league in 2012.

The nerves? The uncertainty? It used to get to them. Phone calls would stir Coffman and Reuland into a panic. Nights would pass without an hour of sleep.

Now they’re veterans of the dreaded “The general manager wants to see you; bring your playbook” phone call. They’re pros. They know how this business works.

“I used to get so emotionally riled up about everything,” Reuland said. “I’d be like, ‘Oh my God, the phone’s ringing.' You’d be sitting by it all day, driving yourself crazy. Now, I try to keep myself busy. You just have to be ready to adjust on the fly.”

He’s done it for five years now. So far, Coffman has survived what Reuland didn’t — the Colts’ first wave of cuts. More are coming.

“You’ve just got to be prepared,” Coffman said. “Whether it’s with this team or another team, only God knows.”

Keep your phone handy.

Call IndyStar reporter Zak Keefer at (317) 444-6134 and follow him on Twitter: @zkeefer.