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Associated Press

The NFL world is a fluid one, especially when it comes to roster makeup and player roles. Players spend months during the offseason trying to solidify their positions on a team, but that doesn't mean their roles won't change once meaningful games are played.

In fact, regular-season performances are realistically the best indicator of what a player's role should be. Performing on the practice field and in vanilla preseason games is one thing—shining with a definitive game plan in place is quite another.

This is why opening-day backups often find themselves in significant roles by season's end or earlier. Today, we're going to take a look at a handful of players who already appear to be doing exactly that.

These are players who have served primarily as backups during the 2015 season—with one or fewer starts through Week 7—but deserve more playing time moving forward. We're talking about players like Broncos running back Ronnie Hillman, who have done enough to earn more playing time and guys like Saints cornerback Kyle Wilson, who deserve an opportunity because of the poor performance of players ahead of them on the depth chart.

Have any other backups stood out to you this season? Feel free to let us know in the comments section.