2022 NFL Trade Deadline Trades: NFL and FF Commentary…
Well, we got a flurry of trades this trade deadline…and a couple had players on both sides included, meaningless as they were, still this is progress. The NFL, the world’s biggest sport with the most players on rosters and none of these exorbitantly paid GMs will look to trade need-for-need, player-for-player. They’re all like Fantasy/Dynasty GMs…always looking to acquire picks as some kind of magical salvation.
Actually, the more I think about it -- another reason why NFL trades are always trading players for picks is the GMs like to ‘play’ in their war rooms for 9+ months. Picks to GMs is all the fun of the job…something for them to do, makes them the star of the show. Who you gonna pick -- is a question asked for six months. Why are so many Mock Drafts done and consumed by the public? Everyone loves the draft process of hypotheticals. It’s the GM’s thing they work on all year, basically. The reason they exist. They downgrade/are less concerned with the on-field results because they want to play in their sandbox of make believe with ‘picks’. They get graded well at their job if they make one great pick, no matter how many other picks fail.
Did I just describe any Dynasty GMs out there?
You know what D’Onta Foreman cost you? Nothing. For Week 9, for Fantasy, just one week, would you rather have Foreman in your lineup…or any single rookie picked in the 2022 NFL Draft? Go ahead and think about it…I’ll wait. NFL GMs ignore Foreman and Mack Hollins and De’Vondre Campbell and Rasul Douglas and Jordan Howard and Geno Smith and Nick Foles because they’re too busy constructing really cool mock draft boards for the upcoming year and pre-ordering all the snacks for the 20-hour day war room events.
The NFL…and now Fantasy…is being won with veteran players.
Yet, the NFL GMs…and all of us in FF will still chase the rookies, or 2nd-year players/near-rookies.
The teams that won at the 2022 NFL trade deadline are the ones that ditched picks for real impact players or filling needs.
Let’s look at each deal and I’ll give a quick NFL opinion and then FF projection short and long-term…
*Deals listed in order of my interest…
-- Bradley Chubb and 2025 5th-round pick to MIA for Chase Edmonds, a 2023 1st-round pick, a 2024 4th-rounder to DEN
If you offset or ignore the 5th/4th-rounders swapped, then this was basically Chubb for a 1st-round pick…which is a great deal. An established defender at a key spot for a ‘pick’. Brilliant.
Did you know that Miami got three #1s from the 49ers for the Trey Lance pick and they ended up using those three #1s in deals to get Waddle-Tyreek-Chubb.
I am a full-on Miami Dolphins fan now. This is how you play the game. Miami is really missing out on not having Trey Lance (or whatever else they would have got at #3 in 2021)...huh?
For Fantasy, Chubb boosts the Miami-DST a bit as they try and build a pressure front to help their wounded/depleted secondary. It’s a good move for now and later.
Chase Edmonds needed to go. He was busting in Miami. He was expensive, and they admitted the mistake and dumped him on Denver…even smarter!! Edmonds will just be ‘in the mix’ in Denver…a little hope for a fresh start, I guess.
LOVE what Miami is doing more and more.
The new trend in the NFL in the next year or two…teams ditching all their high picks to suckers for real players. The Rams started it. The 49ers have just copied it…and so too is Mike McDaniel.
-- Chase Claypool to CHI for a 2nd-round pick to PIT
I did not believe the Steelers would make this trade. They just shut the door on any hope of a 2nd-half of the season comeback. They just dealt another swift kick to the gut of their already dysfunctional offense.
I’m not criticizing this trade as a Claypool backer, per se, but I am watching these game tapes and observing Belichick and most defensive schemes worried about Claypool…especially at the end of games in late Steelers do-or-die drives and opposing teams would go out of their way to put a CB who might not normally cover the slot and put them onto Claypool. NFL defenses respected Claypool above all…while the Steelers were disrespecting what they had in Claypool.
Now, it’s even easier to cover/defend this sad Steelers passing game and offense…you just took a major weapon away and now defenses can condense onto the other WRs. This is a loss for the Steelers, for Diontae-Pickens, and O-C Matt Canada will be fired at some point.
It’s a win for the Bears because Claypool is a superstar waiting to happen. The Steelers fall from ‘the best WR trio in the NFL’ to…I’d rather have Mooney-Claypool, as an NFL coach or GM, than Diontae-Pickens.
It’s not a big win for Claypool…he’s now stuck with Justin Fields, but he can’t do worse than ‘ignored by his own team’ in Pittsburgh. Fields throws prayers to receivers because he has almost no accuracy -- Claypool is perfect to do that with, a giant catch radius and huge skill. The Bears team/organization are better than the Steelers now and going forward. It was already true…but this just shifted the balance even more towards Chicago.
Claypool is probably a WR2-3 in Chicago with erratic results. It helps Darnell Mooney get less coverage attention, so he is an FF-winner but still a WR2-3…Fields is an FF-winner. Pickett-Pickens-Diontae…all losers from this for FF, or no real change The Pitt WRs might pick up a target or two more per game, but they also get tougher coverage attention with a QB who is failing right now. Pickett going from having Claypool at least on the field as an option to Steven Sims is not a ‘help’ for the struggling rookie QB.
-- T.J. Hockenson and a 2023 4th-rounder and a 2024 conditional 4th-rounder to MIN for 2023 2nd and 3rd-round picks.
Basically, Hockenson was traded for nothing. The supposed next Gronk ends his Lions career being given away. The brilliance of trading picks but then getting picks back +1-2-3-4 rounds later should be a staple of every Fantasy/Dynasty trade you make. Detroit gets a later 2nd, while Minnesota gets an early 4th back in 2023…then give away a 3rd but get a 4th-back in 2024…and I bet Minnesota selects the better player, at a lower cost in both instances…so it’s like trading nothing for Hockenson, essentially.
This was probably the single worst deal of the day, from an exchange scenario. Detroit just basically gave a working TE, who had league-wide hype value from 4 years ago still, to a division rival for slightly better/higher picks…picks that they will likely butcher.
Fantastic trade by the Vikings GM, who is rapidly becoming the best in the biz…and a terrible trade for the dying Dan Campbell era. Trade Hockenson all you want, but damn…get something for him!! Everyone wants TEs!!
Hockenson will be the same TE1-2 in Minnesota as he was in Detroit. No real change there.
-- Rashad Fenton to ATL for a 7th-round pick to KC
Why this deal catches my attention… Kansas City is so loaded with young talent on defense, and they are starting to come into their own, that they are just giving away a useful corner. This is a sign that KC’s defense is gonna be fire ahead, and with a good DST schedule…as I’ve been pushing for 3-4 weeks now. The KC-DST is the hot DST for the 2nd-half that is on some waivers off their Week 8 bye.
It also means ATL is going to be missing 1-2 starting CBs for a while, for them to make a deal. P.J. Walker just dropped 300+ yards on them, Burrow 450+ the week prior.
-- Jeff Wilson to MIA for a 5th-round pick in 2023 to SF
Not good news for my Raheem Mostert holdings, but Mostert is still the lead…Wilson goes into the Edmonds support role left behind, but Wilson will take more carries burden off Mostert I would suspect.
-- Nyheim Hines to BUF for Zack Moss and a 6th-round pick 2023 to IND
This made me laugh.
So, this is Buffalo’s big move for the Super Bowl run? They get a hack satellite back, who is expensive on payroll…but it’s something better than nothing.
I laugh because -- why did they make/waste a draft pick on James Cook? Rookies are so magical and special. What could Buffalo have done with that key second round pick had they not thrown it away on a shaky college receiving back that they don’t even utilize the position in their offense as it is, no matter who it is?
Hines is a downgrade here for FF, because he was Frank Reich’s centerpiece. Why is Jim Irsay torturing Reich? Why not fire him instead of the horror movie psychological torture? Traded his Wentz. Benched his Ryan. Fired his O-C. Traded away his favorite offensive player (Hines)? Is Irsay going to kidnap his kids next? Indianapolis is now no-so-secretly one of the worst organizations in the NFL. How did IND-JAX-HOU all end up in the same division?
Remember when Zack Moss was gonna be a star, and I said he wasn’t. Who won between Singletary and Moss in the end? RC did.
-- Calvin Ridley to JAX for a conditional pick: 3rd or 4th in 2023, or a 2nd if they extend him to ATL
How funny is it that Jacksonville has plowed a bunch of money into free agent WRs in 2022…and then absorb another costly WR in Calvin Ridley…as if the Trevor issue is ‘he needs more weapons’. Totally dumb trade by the Jags, but that’s their hallmark.
The Falcons win by taking advantage of the dopey organization. The Falcons don’t throw the ball, so why do they need WRs? They might as well trade them all.
-- Dean Marlowe to BUF for a 7th-round conditional pick to ATL
Very smart by Buffalo, needed…because Jordan Poyer got hurt again and they have SAF depth issues to injury all year and Marlowe has experience in Buffalo and is a good locker room guy.
-- Jacob Martin and a 2024 5th-round pick to DEN for a 2024 4th-round pick
I think Jacob Martin is required to be traded every year. Teams always want him, and yet he does nothing for them.
-- William Jackson to PIT for a late swap of picks to WSH (basically giving him away)
It’s a body for the Steelers, and Washington would’ve cut him had Pitt not stepped in.
-- The trade that didn’t happen…Kareem Hunt to the Rams.
I think the Rams are coming to the conclusion that they cannot compete with SF or any other top NFC teams in 2022, and they’re just gonna ride it out with what they got.
It really is going to be Darrell Henderson with Ronnie Rivers and a returning Cam Akers…and then the ‘BIG’ Kyren Williams push, which is gonna fall flat -- which I would FF-trade Kyren for double of what I would have asked for yesterday for him.
