Art McBride, original owner of the Cleveland Browns, made his money through the ownership of several Cleveland-area taxicab companies in the 1940s. At this time, the NFL roster limit was 33 players. Those players cut by the Browns were given jobs by McBride as taxi drivers. This allowed McBride to replace injured players immediately with well-skilled taxi drivers, thus an injured player was replaced with someone on the taxi squad. The term has since become synonymous with those on a reserve list