To avoid All-America Football Conference payroll rules, team owner Arthur "Mickey" McBride, put them instead on the payroll of his taxicab company, Yellow Cab of Cleveland, though those players never performed any work for Yellow Cab, much less drove taxicabs.
However, the National Football League (NFL) did not officially recognize the existence of taxi squads until February 18, 1965.
On that date, the NFL team owners formally adopted a 40-man active roster supplemented by a taxi squad of unregulated size,[4] which was officially termed the "future list.
"[5] Over the next few seasons, the NFL gradually limited the allowable number of inactive players to seven, and regulations were established in relation to injured reserve and waiver practices.
[6][7] In 1974, the NFL eliminated the taxi squad altogether, moving the seven inactive spots into an expanded 47-man active roster.
[9][10] Players may be signed to a practice squad for several reasons: for lack of space on the team, due to injury, or because they require more development.
[14] The 2020 collective bargaining agreement allowed for teams to elevate up to two players per week to the active roster from the practice squad.
Such promotions must be made the day before the team's game, and allow the player to automatically revert to the practice squad without having to clear waivers.
[18] Additional protocols were in place for activation of large numbers of practice squad players in the event of an outbreak.
[27] Beginning in 2022, up to six veteran players with two or more accrued seasons were allowed on a team's practice squad at a time.
In 2006, the New England Patriots paid third-year player Billy Yates the full $425,000 he would have earned as a member of the team's active roster.
Redshirts consist mostly of freshmen and of transfer students who are not eligible to play in games due to NCAA rules.
[35] The practice squad has also been used by professional teams and leagues as a way to bring in and train players from outside the United States or Canada, where gridiron football is not a popular sport, as an attempt to foster international interest.
[37] In 2005, Rolando Cantu of Mexico was promoted to the Arizona Cardinals' active roster after spending the previous season on the practice squad as a member of the program.
[41] Additionally, several international players have tried to find their starts in the NFL through spending time on teams practice squads without having initially been part of these programs, such as Efe Obada, Moritz Böhringer, and Jarryd Hayne.
In the CFL, the "global" player designation was started in 2019 as part of an international partnership with amateur and semi-pro leagues in Mexico and Europe.