- The New York Jets traded Pro Bowl players Sauce Gardner and Quinnen Williams for multiple high-round draft picks.
- The Philadelphia Eagles added several players, including OLB Jaelan Phillips, to bolster their roster for a playoff run.
- Both the New York Jets and Cincinnati Bengals land as winners and losers for their respective trade deadline moves.
Oh, to be a fly on the wall at 1 Jets Drive. Or The Star. Or even Cincinnati’s Eastern Bloc facilities.
What was shaping up as a very quiet NFL trade deadline turned out to be anything but Tuesday, as the Dallas Cowboys, New York Jets and Indianapolis Colts engaging in some serious blockbustering. The Bengals made a move, too, if not the one they really needed to. There was also a fair amount of secondary activity as well, with some contenders loading up for playoff runs while several pretenders embraced their reality and began laying the groundwork for what they hope are brighter days ahead.
Who made out like bandits? Who might wind up with buyer’s remorse? Without further ado, your winners and losers as this year’s trade market officially closes its doors:
WINNERS
New York Jets
Wow. Just wow. A 1-7 team just jettisoned Pro Bowl-caliber players Sauce Gardner and Quinnen Williams in return for three first-round picks, a Round 2 selection and castoffs Adonai Mitchell and Mazi Smith – once highly regarded draft prospects who failed to reach their potential in Indy and Dallas, respectively, but should have opportunities to fill positions of need in Gotham. But this is obviously about the future, the NYJ now set up to largely influence the 2026 and ’27 drafts in what will be their latest hard reset.
Indianapolis Colts
Surrendering two first-round picks for Gardner is a bold and expensive move to be sure. It’s also one that tells the locker room of the AFC-leading squad that there’s belief this team is ready to compete for a championship. Now. GM Chris Ballard doesn’t lightly part with his beloved draft picks, yet this is the kind of gamble that could further galvanize his team and fan base.
Howie Roseman
Quite an eventful bye week for the mastermind of the reigning Super Bowl champion Philadelphia Eagles, the club’s wily personnel guru adding OLB Jaelan Phillips and CBs Michael Carter II and Jaire Alexander in recent days. Seems like a pretty good haul, if not really a cost-prohibitive one, for a team that needed secondary depth and more pass rush off the edge – and it arrives at a time when the idle Eagles just got pushed back atop the NFC standings.
Jaxon Smith-Njigba
Currently on pace to be the first 2,000-yard receiver in league history, the budding Seattle Seahawks superstar will now be teamed with newly acquired WR Rashid Shaheed – a deep threat who wasn’t previously in Seattle’s arsenal, and a guy who can not only stretch defenses but should also open more space underneath for JSN and even (currently injured) Cooper Kupp.
Mickey Loomis and John Spytek
The New Orleans Saints’ Loomis, the league’s longest-tenured general manager, and the Las Vegas Raiders’ Spytek, who’s in his first year on the job, did nice jobs serving their organizations at a time when neither is particularly competitive. Loomis got a fourth- and fifth-rounder for Shaheed, who’s on an expiring contract. He also unloaded OL Trevor Penning, who wasn’t in the Saints’ long-term plans, to the Los Angeles Chargers. Spytek got a similar return (picks in Rounds 4 and 6) for WR Jakobi Meyers, who repeatedly stated he wanted out of Sin City even though his deal is also set to run out. It may not seem like much, but picking up some mid-rounders for players likely to be half-season rentals amounts to a good day’s work for both men.
Logan Wilson
An off-ball linebacker who was benched by the league’s worst defense statistically (Cincinnati) now gets a chance to start for the league’s second-worst defense – and maybe a former Wyoming Cowboy will thrive anew as a Dallas Cowboy. Coordinator Matt Eberflus’ scheme, which doesn’t utilize much blitzing, is heavily reliant on second-level players thriving in space, so this is a big opportunity for Wilson to sink or swim on a unit that was badly in need of a life raft.
Cincinnati Bengals
A team that’s been historically reluctant to engage in trade talks has been laudably active this year, especially so given how the franchise remains in the clutches of a highly frustrating season. The proactive acquisition for temporary QB Joe Flacco last month was the right move to try and salvage the season. Yet offloading Wilson, who was no longer a part of Cincy’s future (or current lineup) is a cagey stroke, especially since the team clears out his base salaries of at least $6 million apiece in 2026 and ’27 – and at a position where most teams are reluctant to spend that much.
LOSERS
Cincinnati Bengals
They purged Wilson and his money but decided to consign Pro Bowl DE Trey Hendrickson to two more months in football purgatory when he could have been a highly valuable commodity to leverage for the needed rebuild of Cincy’s own defense. But the Bengals could apparently deviate from their tendencies only so much. Now it’s up to Hendrickson and Flacco – and maybe injured Joe Burrow eventually? – to help this team win enough 41-38 games to somehow get back to the playoffs for the first time since 2022.
Jerry Jones
You’d like to give him the benefit of the doubt. Or maybe you don’t. But in the past two months, he’s gotten rid of (possibly) generational DE Micah Parsons, watched his team field a laughingstock of a defense on the way to a 3-5-1 start and 11th place standing overall in the NFC, two games out of the final wild-card spot. Then Jones turns around and effectively spends a chunk of his Parsons’ windfall for Williams, a 27-year-old three-time Pro Bowler … if not a player who was ever able to transcend his circumstances in another dysfunctional organization. Williams is locked up through the 2027 campaign, which is a plus. Conversely, neither he nor Wilson is a pass rusher, so hard to envision these moves putting Dallas over the top – certainly not this year and maybe not in the next few.
New England Patriots
They have more available cap space – by far – than any team in the league and had recently accumulated extra mid-level draft picks by trading backups Keion White and Kyle Dugger last week. But the first-place Pats either couldn’t or wouldn’t extend their resources to bring in another stud. And maybe that’s OK given the alleged rebuild under first-year coach Mike Vrabel seems to be going swimmingly. Yet maybe they’ll rue not doing more to fend off the charge that seems likely to come from the perennial AFC East champion Buffalo Bills.
James Gladstone
It’s exceedingly early, but the bold deal the Jacksonville Jaguars’ rookie GM did in April to get Heisman Trophy winner Travis Hunter with the draft’s No. 2 pick hasn’t produced many early returns. Now, with Hunter and WR1 Brian Thomas sidelined by injuries, Gladstone forked over two more future picks for Meyers, who’s averaged all of 31 receiving yards over the past four weeks and now must quickly internalize Liam Coen’s offense. That’s a hefty mortgage for one position – and one that doesn’t have a whole lot of curbside appeal at this moment.
Kyler Murray
This isn’t to suggest he was on the block. But the timing couldn’t be more coincidental. Murray was in street clothes Monday night, when his Arizona Cardinals clobbered the Cowboys – and subsequently invited another round of questions as to whether journeyman Jacoby Brissett should be anointed the club’s permanent starter given how much better the offense has looked with him at the controls. Murray was never going to be traded this year. But with his contractual guarantees set to run out after the 2026 campaign, it’s worth wondering – especially if the Cards continue jelling with him on the sideline – if Murray might be on the move a few months from now.
New York Jets
They basically seem like they’re down to one foundational piece, WR Garrett Wilson, unless their recent first-round blockers (Olu Fashanu and Armand Membou) live up to their advance billing. But moving on from Gardner and Williams says a lot about how rookie coach Aaron Glenn and GM Darren Mougey regarded their roster and culture … and maybe how those departed players felt, too. But apparently they presented owner Woody Johnson with a plan – if one that’s likely going to require several more years to attempt to bring this woebegone franchise, one that’s league-long streak of missing the playoffs (dating to 2010) will extend, back to relevance.
Quincy Williams
Tough to see your brother shipped out − i.e., Quinnen Williams is literally Quincy Williams’ brother. Come on, Jerry, no package deal? Especially when you were obviously looking for help at linebacker?