Roster News: Valentine Holmes allocated to Jets via International Player Pathway

by Site Admin

As previously discussed on JetsFix, the AFC East was selected to receive allocated players from the International Player Pathway Program this season.

Apparently the Jets have selected their man:

Holmes is 23 from Australia and ran a 4.45 at the pro day for the IPPP players. He's a former rugby league international and is listed as a running back/receiver/returner.

The Jets receive an exemption on their 90-man roster throughout training camp so they can actually have 91 players. Then, at the end of the preseason, they will get an exemption so that they can keep an 11th player on their practice squad from this program.

NFL.com coverage indicates that the players in the program can not play in the 2019 season, but that's not actually true according to our interpretation of a previous NFL press release. They are only ineligible to play if the team opts to use the practice squad exemption on them, which might not always be the case.

It's most likely that each team will use that practice squad exemption on their allocated player, but you don't have to do that. The Jets could instead elect to use it on one of the other six players in the program (although the three players allocated to the other AFC East teams probably will just join those teams).

Any of the seven players in the program could instead sign a conventional free agent or practice squad contract, thereby not using the exemption and freeing it up to use on someone else. This would make them eligible to play, but also wouldn't guaranteed their spot for the whole year as the practice spot exemption would.

The player's salary will be paid by the league and will not count against the salary cap.