How the Risk-Averse NFL Learned to Love Trades

The NFL once was a virtual no-trades league.

Not anymore. Not even close.

As teams consider their options ahead of next Tuesday’s 4 p.m. ET trade deadline, there already has been a series of significant deals made this season. And those in and around the league say they expect more eye-catching trades to be completed in the coming days.

“I do,” veteran NFL agent Leigh Steinberg told Front Office Sports this week, “because we’re starting to be at the halfway point in the season. And that’s enough time for evaluations. In other words, it’s enough time for the Kansas City Chiefs to say, ‘Gee, wouldn’t it be nice—isn’t it necessary for us to find wide receiving help?’ They’ve got enough proof.”

This season’s major trades already have included defensive tackle Jeffery Simmons being dealt from the Titans to the Bears, quarterback J.J. McCarthy being sent from the Vikings to the Giants, cornerback Joey Porter Jr. going from the Steelers to the Cowboys, center Cam Jurgens heading from the Eagles to the Ravens, and wide receiver Marvin Harrison Jr. moving from the Cardinals to the Texans.

The Colts have begun a potential fire sale in Carlie Irsay-Gordon’s second season as primary owner by trading guard Quenton Nelson to the Seahawks and defensive tackle DeForest Buckner to the 49ers. The Ravens, after losing quarterback Lamar Jackson to a thumb injury and top backup Tyler Huntley to a toe injury, have lined up an expected deal with the Cardinals to get quarterback Jacoby Brissett.

Some within the league still believe the Colts could part with a player or two from among running back Jonathan Taylor, wide receiver Josh Downs, and defensive tackle Grover Stewart. There has been trade speculation about Jaguars wide receiver Brian Thomas Jr., pass rushers Khalil Mack of the Chargers and Josh Sweat of the Cardinals, Arizona safety Budda Baker, and many other players.

“Stay tuned,” a high-ranking official with one NFL team told FOS. “I’m guessing there’s much more to come.”

Long gone are the days when the trade deadline would pass with a league-wide collective yawn and barely a notice.

“We now have a situation much more like baseball … with teams identifying themselves as buyers, sellers, stand-pat,” Steinberg said. “And it’s much more like the wild, wild West. And it’s self-reinforcing. The very fact there are more trades means that there are [further] trades because it takes the stigma [away]. Obviously general managers can be judged and focused on very easily with a draft pick. But they also can be evaluated very easily with a trade, for good or bad.”

There have been seven in-season trades so far this year, not counting the pending Brissett deal. That’s after there were 22 in-season trades in the NFL last year between the roster cutdown and trade deadline. That was up from 18 such deals during the 2024 season and 15 in 2023. The average over the previous seven years has been 17.4 in-season trades annually. There have not been fewer than 13 in-season trades in any year over that span.

That’s after there were only six in-season trades league-wide in 2016, nine in 2017, and eleven in 2018.

The old-school NFL approach was that teams were built exclusively through the draft. That began to change in the 1990s with free agency and the salary cap. But even then, many GMs and coaches stuck with the notion that trades were mostly taboo, particularly during the season when a player would have to be incorporated into a new on-field scheme.

“I’ve always thought that football was the most situational of any sport,” Steinberg said. “In other words, a player who … is an absolute bust in location A—because of the difference in systems and utilization and talent—can be a superstar in place B.”

The mindset changed over time, however.

“Why are teams trading more? The pressure to win now,” Steinberg said. “More aggressive front offices. Contract situations—teams approaching difficult contract decisions may trade a player rather than risk losing them in free agency. … Expanded playoff opportunities—more teams have reason to believe they can compete for [the] postseason.”

The Rams famously valued adding prominent veteran players over the promise associated with retaining premium draft choices in their “Fuck Them Picks” roster-construction approach that led to their Super Bowl title in the 2021 season. Other teams surely took note. So while it’s still striking that the Bears sent a pair of first-round picks to the Titans last week as part of the Simmons trade package, it’s less shocking.

The trade deadline being later in the season also has been a meaningful factor in the increased activity. The deadline is now the Tuesday after the Week 9 games after the NFL moved it a week later in 2024 (some teams had proposed moving it until after Week 10). Before 2012, it came after Week 6. Teams now have longer to decide whether they should be buyers with Super Bowl aspirations or sellers with an eye on rebuilding.

Thus, there has been public conversation about whether the reeling Eagles might be trade-deadline sellers. They already traded Jurgens. They reportedly have told star running back Saquon Barkley that he won’t be traded. If not, that would eliminate the possibility of Barkley rejoining his original NFL team, the Giants, this season.

Barkley recently told FOS that while he has “no hate in my heart for New York football, for the New York football Giants,” he was not focused on a prospective reunion.

“I’m focused on where my feet is,” Barkley said. “And just right now obviously the season is not going the way we want [it] to go. But everything we want is still in front of us. I’ve got to get healthy and try to be the leader I can and try to turn this thing around.”

The Giants, leading the NFC East in John Harbaugh’s first season as their coach, tried but failed to trade for Simmons, with Harbaugh even admitting he called Titans owner Amy Adams Strunk. The Chiefs, back in the Super Bowl–contending mix after a dynasty-interrupting 2025 season, could be in the market for a pass rusher and a wide receiver. The 49ers nearly traded for Vikings wide receiver Jauan Jennings, who previously played for them, but the deal fell apart after he told the Niners that he was happy in Minnesota.

“That’s what personnel people do since Week 1. … They look every week to see who you can add, week in and week out,” 49ers coach Kyle Shanahan said during a news conference Wednesday. “And it gets bigger as the trade deadline comes. But J.J. was someone we knew. So it was someone we wanted to talk to, if we went through with that. And they were willing to do it at the time. … Receivers is something we still are looking into. And so is every other position.”

It all will make for plenty of NFL intrigue leading up to the deadline.

“One of the arguments against free agency was that fans no longer have the ability to root for a long period of time for a player with one team and that it cuts down allegiance and all the rest of that,” Steinberg told FOS. “And you can make the same argument about trades. But we already have free agency. … The cow’s out of the barn, or the horse is out of the barn. The point is, it’s already happened. And the game, if anything, is more popular.”