The 2024 NFL trade deadline wasn’t the most exciting day of the league calendar. There were no Bryce Young deals or mega-blockbuster moves. But a handful of contending teams fixed holes—like the Lions with their pass rush and the Commanders in the secondary. Some teams—the Bills and Chiefs—celebrated the wide receiver trades they’d made before the pressures of the deadline kicked in. And the Cowboys and Jets … well, things aren’t looking great.

Here are our winners and losers of the NFL trade deadline:

Too Close to Call: The November Trade Deadline

Nora Princiotti: After months of prognostication and debate, it finally ended on Tuesday—I’m referring, of course, to the NFL trade deadline. (I know everyone and their mother has made some version of this joke online so forgive me, but I do think we can all agree this was a bit much for one single day of punditry, yes?)

This was the first year of new timing for the trade deadline, which the NFL in March voted to move back by a week. The shift was made to encourage trades, with the thought being that more teams would know whether they were buyers or sellers a week later into the season. And it was an active deadline and preceding trade period—since October 1, there have been 18 trades made between NFL teams. According to David Bearman of Pro Football Network, who tracks trades closely, that’s the second-most in that timeframe in NFL history, coming in behind 2022, when 21 trades were made. Of course, the old deadline was in place in 2022, and the current generation of general managers in the NFL has trended increasingly trade-happy, so it’s possible that any increase wouldn’t have much to do with the new deadline anyway.

Several trades that ultimately happened on deadline day had been in the works for some time—the Lions had been in conversation with the Browns over Za’Darius Smith for weeks, according to ESPN’s Adam Schefter, while the Commanders and Ravens were known to be shopping around for cornerbacks, which they landed in trades for former Saint Marshon Lattimore and former Ram Tre’Davious White, respectively. It is true that the Saints might have been feeling differently about their prospects a week ago, before their demoralizing loss to the Panthers and Dennis Allen’s subsequent firing, so perhaps that’s one move where the new deadline made a difference. Overall though, the degree to which the new deadline has encouraged more trade activity seems—stop me if you’ve heard this one before—too close to call.

Winner: The Detroit Lions Defense

Steven Ruiz: The Lions wouldn’t let the deadline pass without finding a replacement for Aidan Hutchinson, who went down for the season with a broken leg in Week 6. On Tuesday they got their guy, sending fifth- and sixth-round picks to Cleveland for Za’Darius Smith and a seventh-rounder. It’s a low-risk deal for Detroit that fills the biggest hole—maybe the only hole—on the team. Even if Smith is a bust, the Lions aren’t going to rue the day they gave up two Day 3 picks. And if Smith can give Detroit 75 percent of Hutchinson’s production in obvious passing situations, this could be a steal.

That’s asking a lot of the 32-year-old, though. While he has five sacks on the season, they’ve come an average of 3.96 seconds after the snap, and his pressure rate pales in comparison to Hutchinson’s.

Smith can serve as a solid piece in a good pass-rush rotation, but he can’t take over games like he once did—and like Hutchinson had been doing before his injury.

Smith remains a sturdy presence in the run game, so he’ll help the Lions defense on early downs, but he was brought in to fix the pass rush on third down—which broke immediately after Hutchinson’s injury. Detroit had a 53-percent pressure rate and five sacks on third downs over the first six weeks of the season, per TruMedia. Since then, the pressure rate has dropped to 21 percent, and the Lions have sacked the quarterback only once on the money down. Thanks to a red-hot offense and a spike in takeaways, the pass-rush issue hasn’t cost the Lions any games. But the front office was smart to get out in front of the problem before it did.

Detroit’s offseason overhaul of the secondary has worked, allowing the team to play tighter man coverage. If the trade for Smith gets the pass rush playing at a league-average level, the defense will be built to play January football. We already know the offense is ready for that.

Loser: Jerry Jones

Austin Gayle: The Dallas Cowboys shouldn’t let Jerry Jones go out like this. In 1989, his first year as the team’s owner, Jones drafted future Hall of Fame quarterback Troy Aikman with the no. 1 pick. The following year, Jones drafted another Hall of Famer, running back Emmitt Smith. Aikman and Smith led the team to three Super Bowl wins. Jones deserves his flowers and then some for that. He turned America’s Team into a dynasty. But they’re a long way from that now.

In the same week the Cowboys dropped to 3-5 and lost starting quarterback Dak Prescott for “multiple weeks” with a hamstring injury, Jones doubled down on the lost season, trading a 2025 fourth-round pick to the Carolina Panthers for wide receiver Jonathan Mingo and a seventh-rounder. To honor Jerry Jones, I made a doodle about this disaster.

I also made a bullet-pointed list for those who can’t handle me at peak doodle:

• Prescott is going to miss multiple weeks. The Cowboys’ next three games are against the Eagles, Texans, and Commanders. Cooper Rush probably isn’t winning those games. Prescott might not have even been able to win those games! The Cowboys are 3-5 with injuries everywhere and coaching issues (Mike McCarthy, we see you) beyond that. They’re not a Mingo away from being playoff-competitive.
• Mingo isn’t good. He’s a former second-rounder out of Ole Miss with the height-weight-speed combination that NFL teams foam at the mouth to develop—but he simply hasn’t developed yet. Like, at all. He’s one of the least productive receivers in the league. Among the 92 wide receivers with 400-plus routes run since last season, Mingo ranks 85th in yards per route run. He obviously can improve. Every player can, young and old. But he has a WAYS to go (especially in terms of his ball skills).
• THIS ISN’T EVEN A LOW-RISK, HIGH-REWARD DECISION. The Cowboys gave up a fourth-round pick in next year’s draft for Mingo. DeAndre Hopkins went for less. Diontae Johnson went for less. Dallas gave up more to add Mingo than it got in return for Amari Cooper a few years back. This is a dramatic misunderstanding of the wide receiver trade market.

Overspending on underwhelming talent in what already might be a lost season is just another tired example of Jones being too far dug into his role in the decision-making process. Someone has to tell him that Michael Irvin isn’t walking through that door; it’s actually Jonathan Mingo.

Winner: The Washington Commanders As Serious Contenders

Danny Heifetz: What a difference a year makes. This time in 2023, Washington was trading its best defender, pass rusher Montez Sweat, to the Bears in a move that would help change the course of the franchise’s history. By worsening the defense and tanking the second half of the season (Washington lost its final eight games), the Commanders earned the no. 2 pick in the draft, which became LSU quarterback Jayden Daniels. Now, with Daniels under center, Washington is 7-2, the team is jockeying not just for the lead in the NFC East but the no. 1 overall seed in the conference, and they are a buyer at the deadline. On Tuesday, Washington sent third-, fourth-, and sixth-round picks to the Saints for cornerback Marshon Lattimore and a fifth-rounder—a deal that signals the Commanders are officially going for the NFC crown.

The Lattimore trade addresses the single biggest weakness on Washington’s roster: cornerback. Commanders 2023 first-round pick Emmanuel Forbes Jr., who is listed at a dubious 180 pounds and is built like my former Ringer colleague Ben Solak, has been unplayable this season (he ranks 199th out of 205 cornerbacks in PFF grading). And as The Washington Post’s Sam Fortier noted, by adding Lattimore, Washington can bump Benjamin St-Juste to their no. 2 outside cornerback and allow rookie Mike Sainristil to play in the slot. The Commanders can now play more single-high safety looks and more man coverage, as long as Lattimore stays healthy (though it’s worth noting that Lattimore has not played more than 10 games in a season since 2021). This is the move of a team that’s genuinely trying to win the Super Bowl, and one that’s giving Detroit serious competition for the feel-good story of a destitute franchise turned Super Bowl contender.

Winner: (Some) Teams That Made Pre-Deadline Wide Receiver Moves

Sheil Kapadia: We’re talking about the Chiefs and Bills here. Any list of teams that can actually win the Super Bowl has to include those two. Both decided to leave no stone unturned this season while also not mortgaging their futures—with the Bills acquiring Amari Cooper and a sixth-rounder from the Browns for a third- and a seventh-round pick, and the Chiefs giving up a conditional fifth for DeAndre Hopkins. We’ve already seen that latter move pay off: Hopkins had eight catches for 86 yards and two touchdowns on nine targets in Kansas City’s Monday-night win over the Bucs. Aside from one miscommunication, it looked like he and Patrick Mahomes had been playing together for years.

Meanwhile, any thought that this would be a reset year for the Bills has been thrown out the window, given that they pretty much have the AFC East locked up midway through the season. Their offense has been excellent, but Buffalo opted to build on strength with its trade for Cooper. With the emergence of younger wide receivers like Khalil Shakir and Keon Coleman, along with multiple tight ends, and running back James Cook, this is suddenly a well-rounded group.

Two teams with elite quarterbacks in their primes. Neither panicked by signing overpriced free agents in the offseason. Both found valuable pieces for marginal costs at the deadline. Just another reminder of why good teams stay good and bad teams stay bad.

Losers: Davante Adams and Friends of Aaron Rodgers

Lindsay Jones: A year ago in this very space, we named Davante Adams one of the losers of the 2023 NFL trade deadline. The then–Las Vegas Raider notably hadn’t been traded, but us ball knowers here at The Ringer knew he should have been, and eventually we were right.

Well, once again we sit here at the trade deadline, and in one sense Adams is a winner. He did successfully get himself out of Las Vegas, away from one of the ugliest offenses in the NFL, an awful quarterback situation, and a generally sinking ship.

But what’s happened in the three weeks since he ended up with the New York Jets? Until last Thursday night, when he caught his first touchdown as a Jet and won his first game in green, it’s just been a lot of losing. No amount of friendship, it seems, can save the Jets’ season. Still, when it comes to playing with Aaron Rodgers, friendship counts for something—just ask Mike Williams, who never seemed to get on the same page with Rodgers after arriving as a free agent this spring, and who was traded to Pittsburgh on Tuesday. Only friends get fed around here, you know.

So where does Adams net out? He’s no longer a Raider (phew!), he should get more targets without Williams (great for individual stats!) but to what end? Adams was the first of the veteran receivers traded this fall, and the guys who came next—Amari Cooper and DeAndre Hopkins—ended up on two of the AFC’s best teams, and almost certainly will get to the postseason. Adams got the thing he wanted most—to play with his BNFLFF (Best NFL Friend Forever)—and they can probably get a jump start on planning a winter holiday. But they’re still a very long shot to make the postseason—and after Tuesday’s deadline, one avenue for the Jets to acquire more Friends of Aaron is now closed. (Though, I just googled, and Mason Crosby is available on the free agent market.)

Winners: Russell Wilson and Mike Tomlin

Diante Lee: With Baltimore playing some of its best football and Cincinnati turning its season around, it seems the Steelers felt an impetus to add veteran talent on both sides of the ball at the deadline. Early on Tuesday they sent a fifth-round pick to the Jets for receiver Mike Williams, and later they gave Green Bay a seventh-round pick for edge rusher Preston Smith.

In Williams, the Steelers are bringing in a ball-winner on the perimeter who fits the play style of quarterback Russell Wilson—so we should expect more of his patented “moon balls” in the coming weeks. Beyond what he does for Wilson, though, Williams is a wise hedge against relying too heavily on young receiver George Pickens, who’s had several lapses in motor and effort this season. Those lapses have prompted Mike Tomlin to decrease Pickens’s workload, and while publicly Tomlin has positioned this as a matter of maximizing Pickens’ production, given the dearth of talent on this depth chart prior to the Williams trade, it came across as a message being sent to the player about his behavior.

On the other side of the ball, the Smith move should patch up some team’s depth issues opposite star defender T.J. Watt. Alex Highsmith missed a chunk of time this year with a groin injury, and Nick Herbig is nursing a bad hamstring. Once those guys are back, Smith will probably be a situational role player at best, as he seems to have lost some of his pass-rushing juice this year.

Neither of these moves were all-in measures, nor do I expect them to tip the scales in the balance of power in the AFC. But it does seem clear that Tomlin and this organization aren’t going to let an opportunity to compete for the postseason pass them by.