2024 Trade Deadline Tracker: How we graded every move

The NFL trade deadline is now in the rearview mirror. Some teams got better, some teams strategically got worse, and the Las Vegas Raiders hired yet another coach familiar to fans of the NFL circa 1996 to 2005. Everyone tries in their own way, I suppose. 

Winners are hard to predict during something like the NFL draft, when we know a long and curvy developmental road ultimately defines success. With the trade deadline, it’s easier to declare a team successful because acquiring talent at this time of year is often an indicator of a winning team and culture already (unless, of course, you are the Dallas Cowboys, but more on that in a second). The mere act of a midseason trade is often a net win for the locker room. It shows that management is engaged, the same way you might feel if the C-suite executives at your company ditched the Keurig for a Nespresso machine after a good quarter (game changer). 

The same can be said for losers. To me, the definition of a loser at this point in time is a team with high expectations that is neither winning nor doing anything to course correct via equity-adding trades. A close second would be bad teams continuing to gut talent every handful of years, reappearing on this list time and time again. 

So, it’s with that in mind that we dig in.

Marshon Lattimore

Imagine going from the locker room after a loss to the Carolina Panthers—a special kind of darkness—to boarding a plane bound for the Washington Commanders’ facility. From dealing with an interim head coach and a reshuffled defensive staff to playing for Dan Quinn, who, in almost every one of his coaching stops, has maximized the star potential of his secondary. From sitting on the sidelines watching Spencer Rattler, Taysom Hill and Derek Carr jockey for passing snaps to watching Jayden Daniels. I don’t think any player, save for Za’Darius Smith leaving the Cleveland Browns for the Detroit Lions, has had the same kind of reversal in fortune at the trade deadline. Obviously, these deals are tumultuous and life-altering, but Lattimore, a 28-year-old four-time Pro Bowler with the New Orleans Saints, now gets the Darius Slay treatment and becomes a central part of a fascinating story after being plucked from football irrelevance. 

I’ll add this on Lattimore: The Commanders have had the highest percentage of recovered fumbles in the NFL, which is a kind of stat that reflects luck-oriented plays. While there has been nothing lucky about the drafting and development of Daniels, the Lattimore trade shows the need to step up and become more dominant down the stretch. 

Jerry Jones

Jones will appear twice on this list (see more below). Reports suggest that he overpaid for Panthers wide receiver Jonathan Mingo, who was on my list of players projected to be available last week. Mingo, a second-round pick out of Ole Miss in 2023, had an 85-target first season for the miserable Panthers but disappeared this year with the arrival of a new coaching staff and offensive scheme. I, for one, am a huge fan of bad teams adding high-ceiling talent at the deadline, especially if they’re not spending a pick in the first three rounds (the Cowboys sent a fourth-rounder for Mingo and a seventh-rounder). The receiver market is still chaotic and it takes both luck and boffo draft capital to get good ones. A gamble on Mingo amid a lost season where he should get some work down the stretch is not a bad idea. 

Steelers fans

There is something heartwarming about a Pittsburgh Steelers team loading up on offense at the trade deadline. For one, any time a Steelers coach called my office about a wide receiver, I’d hang up. Pittsburgh has had a historic run at the position in terms of drafting and development, going all the way back to Hines Ward, Santonio Holmes, Plaxico Burress, Antonio Brown and so on. Whatever they saw in New York Jets receiver Mike Williams that Aaron Rodgers, Joe Douglas and Woody Johnson didn’t see would concern me. Williams has the potential to wake up in an offense piloted by Russell Wilson, whose deep balls are legendary for being catchable. While Williams has done a lot of work to round out his route tree in recent years, he is still a high-level streaker and 50-50 ball option. 

Joe Burrow and common sense 

Since Zac Taylor arrived in 2019, the Cincinnati Bengals have spent heavily in free agency and now gotten (somewhat) aggressive at the trade deadline. Allowing Joe Mixon to walk was a complicated and, ultimately, deleterious decision. But layering the backfield with Tuesday’s addition of Khalil Herbert for just a seventh-round pick is a move that both fills an immediate need and benefits the offense in the medium term. Herbert is great at generating yards after first contact and has some ability to catch the ball. Cincinnati didn’t exactly knock this one out of the park, though I don’t know how many quality running backs were available. The Bengals did not, however, sit on their hands and do nothing. The Herbert trade takes stress off Burrow and a team that has one of the worst rushing EPA per play rates in the NFL, and acknowledges their efforts in staying competitive despite a weird season to date. 

Matt LaFleur and Brian Gutekunst

The most exciting place for the kids to hang out these days? Wisconsin, obviously. The Green Bay Packers entered the season as the youngest roster in the NFL, and then dealt edge rusher Preston Smith to the Steelers. Green Bay was the only team after the 53-man cut down to have an average roster age under 25. This presents an incredible runway and growth potential for a team and shows the braintrust’s confidence in young players such as 2023 first-round pick Lukas Van Ness. While Green Bay’s immaturity has been reflected in some tight losses at times, if I am buying NFL futures, I am loading up on a Packers roster with a great ceiling. 

Grit

If you’re Dan Campbell and your top pass rusher goes down, the tired reaction would be to implore your general manager to scour the NFL for a high-ceiling player who can fill the void left behind by Aidan Hutchinson. The wired reaction would be to win a bunch of big games anyway and then trade for Za’Darius Smith, who has a clear motivation to destroy his two most recent former clubs before the Cleveland Browns, which happen to be two of Detroit’s division rivals. Smith said the Packers made him “feel like a nobody” after he was injured. He also wasn’t happy with his deal with the Minnesota Vikings, either. The saltiest team in the NFL just got a whole lot saltier. 

Kwesi Adofo-Mensah

I hesitated to put the Vikings anywhere on this list because I didn’t have a strong take on the addition of Cam Robinson or Cam Akers. At first, I wondered about the Robinson trade’s reflection of Minnesota’s depth, but then wondered how many teams could even adequately replace a franchise tackle (the injured Christian Darrisaw) at this juncture of the season. Ultimately, getting the best tackle available when your anchor tackle is hurt should be commended, so we’ll include the team’s GM on this list.

The current New York Giants regime 

Not trading Azeez Ojulari, to me, shows an interest in seeing the Brian Daboll–Joe Schoen era through the end of this season and giving the former Coach of the Year and his accompanying GM some time to save face at 2–7. While the year looks bleak, Ojulari has been on a tear since Week 6, and losing him would have been the pin in this season’s still slightly inflated balloon. While Schoen could ultimately look foolish by losing Ojulari in free agency, I’m sure that his projected comp pick was factored into any trade demands. The Giants could still lose him and fare better than by simply dealing him on the open market. 

Jets general manager Joe Douglas

I imagine at some point, Douglas had a plan. We all make plans. I once aspired to major in finance and attend law school. But the deeper into this chaotic whirlwind the New York Jets venture, the more the construction of this team has resembled day trading. Mike Williams in? Mike Williams out. Davante Adams in? Robert Saleh out. Without the time and space to fortify an identity, the Jets have to simply keep dipping into the go fish pile in order to sort themselves out. At the very least, they got a fifth-round pick for their troubles. 

Jerry Jones

As I said at the top, this was a good opportunity for Dallas to get a head start on its roster turnover, which is going to be quite a project. I don’t mind taking fliers on young draft picks, but I think making room for your younger players to get reps at the end of this season is critical, as is adding some draft capital for the future. Holding onto DeMarcus Lawrence, starting Cooper Rush over Trey Lance, not exploring a market for Brandin Cooks … what is the thought process here? Go all in on something, dammit. 

People who really hate dynasties 

The comparison between the Kansas City Chiefs and the Tom Brady–era New England Patriots is increasingly apt the deeper we get into the Chiefs’ undefeated season. Seeing Kansas City thrive by immediately adding either rehashed former Chiefs (Kareem Hunt), discarded former role players (Samaje Perine), aging former stars (DeAndre Hopkins) or under-the-radar depth (Josh Uche) creates this feeling of inevitability around their latest attempt to win a Super Bowl. While any team can always be more aggressive, and last year’s inaction at the wide receiver position felt almost irresponsible, the Chiefs have been able to strike an enviable balance between adding new talent and developing what is already there. 

Cryptic social media posts

We had two wide receivers make a run at it. Hopkins posted a photo of Tom Brady hugging Randy Moss about 57 minutes before the deadline, leading us to believe that another monster addition could be on the horizon for the Chiefs when, in reality, Hopkins may have just been comparing himself and Mahomes to Moss and Brady? Could he have not waited like 24 hours to tweet that? And, who can forget Davante Adams posting a photo of Edgar Allen Poe and then getting traded to the … Jets? Poe was in New York when he married his 13-year-old cousin, but the Jets practice in Florham Park, N.J. I suppose it could have been in reference to the Poe line (which was the next slide in Adams’s Instagram story) about not believing any of what you hear and half of what you see. Anyway, we can do better. What happened to our literary flair? 

The New Orleans Saints

The Saints have been avoiding internal pain like a 54-year-old man on TRT driving a sports car and dating a 24-year-old. Trading Lattimore was the first step toward realizing that many decisions that have led them to this point were bad, ill-advised, unchecked and so on. New Orleans not only traded its most promising defensive player, but saddled itself with a remaining locker room full of veteran malcontents who probably also wanted off the island. The job for interim head coach Darren Rizzi was already challenging before we reached the point of both a spiral and a soft tank hitting at the same time. 

Cleveland Browns fans 

This fan base is prepared to start over yet again, as Cleveland sold Za’Darius Smith to the contending Lions. As of now, the braintrust in place is largely similar to the one that struggled with the decision to draft Myles Garrett over Mitch Trubisky (in the 2017 draft that yielded Patrick Mahomes), chose Deshaun Watson instead of Baker Mayfield and a haul of high-level picks, and is now breaking down the wagon yet again for another attempt at rebuilding the roster amid mass uncertainty regarding both Watson’s play and the challenge of building a roster around his mammoth cap hits. Garrett is entering his age-29 season next year, with other stalwarts such as Joel Bitonio (33), Wyatt Teller (two weeks shy of 30), David Njokou (28) and Nick Chubb (soon to be 29). The us-against-the-world vibes of the Browns team that upset Pittsburgh in a guttural, franchise-altering January 2021 playoff win seem like a distant noise.