NFL in-season trades on the rise: Why teams are making more impactful pre-deadline moves than ever before

It wasn’t all that long ago that the NFL trade deadline would come and go with barely a peep. In fact, entire seasons used to go by without teams making any meaningful in-season deals. But in recent seasons, that has changed pretty dramatically. Teams are now more and more willing to go for it, and to make trades at a rate closer to that of their counterparts in the NBA, MLB and NHL, all of which have traditionally been much more active leagues when it comes to midseason deals.

Take this year, for example. As of Tuesday evening, we have already seen nine trades completed since the start of the 2024 NFL regular season. Those deals are as follows:

That’s a lot of wheeling and dealing! 

It’s more than the number of pre-deadline trades made in 2011 through 2016 combined. Since 2011 (i.e. in the new CBA environment), there have only been more pre-deadline-week trades twice: first in 2015 and then again in 2019. 

We don’t yet know how the next week will play out. We do know that with the expanded playoff field that arrived in 2020, more teams are technically in contention throughout the season. And after the league pushed the trade deadline itself back by a week this year, there is also now more time than ever to make deals. 

We’re already seeing teams take advantage by making more and more impactful trades. Each of the Seahawks, Titans, Chiefs and Jaguars has made two deals. Four different teams have added starting wide receivers, ranging from solid No. 2 options like Diontae Johnson to either current or former stars in Davante Adams, Amari Cooper and DeAndre Hopkins.

Last year, we saw players like Kevin Byard, Leonard Williams, Montez Sweat, Ezra Cleveland, Chase Young and Rasul Douglas change teams during deadline week, and J.C. Jackson, Chase Claypool, Randy Gregory and Mecole Hardman do so before it. In 2022, big movers included Robert Quinn, Kadarius Toney, Roquan Smith, T.J. Hockenson, Bradley Chubb, Calvin Ridley and Jeff Wilson. 

Von Miller and Odell Beckham Jr. have recently been dealt in years. So have Christian McCaffrey, Stephon Gilmore, Yannick Ngakoue, Jalen Ramsey, Aqib Talib, Leonard Williams (from the Jets to the Giants in 2019, before the Giants sent him to the Seahawks last year), Michael Bennett, Emmanuel Sanders, Quandre Diggs, Marcus Peters, Minkah Fitzpatrick … you get the idea.

We’ve come a very long way in a very short time. In 2011, the only player traded in-season was Carson Palmer, who had been holding out in Cincinnati and finally was dealt to Oakland. In 2012, it was just Mike Thomas (no, not the one from the Saints).

It used to be a common conception that NFL systems were too complicated to justify in-season trades. The ramp-up period in a new offense or defense would be too long and the impact therefore too minimal. Teams clearly don’t feel that way anymore. They’re taking more swings, and bigger swings, than ever before.