Which teams have been the biggest winners and losers so far?
The 2018 NFL season is rife with parity. Halfway through the season, 24 teams have between three and six wins, and with the exception of some clearly rebuilding franchises — the Cardinals, Giants, and Raiders foremost among them — nearly everyone is still in the playoff hunt.
But teams looking for a fortune-changing piece to push them to the postseason don’t have much time to add an impact player. The NFL’s trade deadline strikes at 4 p.m. ET on Oct. 30, signaling the end of what’s already been an eventful swap season. October has already seen players like Amari Cooper and Carlos Hyde change teams with more than a week before the deadline hits. More are sure to come, and you can keep up with all the rumors here.
How will these trades pan out? It’s tough to know much before an acquired player even takes a snap with his new team, but we still know overpays when we see them. Here’s how 2018’s NFL trades look while they’re still prominent in the league’s rearview mirror.
The Cowboys got their No. 1 receiver, Amari Cooper — for a big price
Cowboys get: WR Amari Cooper
Raiders get: 2019 first-round pick
Holy crap, the Raiders actually got a first-round pick in exchange for Cooper! Barely a month after it cost the Patriots a fifth-rounder to free Josh Gordon from Cleveland!
Giving up a first-round pick for a multiple-time 1,000-yard receiver on his rookie contract isn’t unprecedented; the Rams did it this offseason to pry Brandin Cooks away from the Patriots. But Cooks was coming off a year as the top receiver and most explosive deep threat on an AFC championship team. Cooper has had only 70 catches in his last 20 games for a bad Oakland squad and was roughly the league’s 40th-most effective wide receiver in 2017.
The Cowboys are betting a change of scenery will unlock the player who had 155 catches and more than 2,200 receiving yards his first two seasons as a pro. Dak Prescott has been working overtime to push a WR corps led by players like Cole Beasley, Allen Hurns, Tavon Austin, and Michael Gallup to respectability. A healthy Cooper would easily become Dallas’ top option, and with the NFC East very winnable, that could be the difference between a playoff berth and a season that ends at Week 17. Keeping him around won’t be cheap, however — he’s due $13.9 million in 2019 and will likely require a large extension before the season starts.
The Raiders’ descent into their Las Vegas rebuild sped up with the deal, which gives Jon Gruden five first-round picks over the next two seasons. That draft wealth comes at the expense of a tanking job Sam Hinkie could truly appreciate, but it’s not like this Oakland team was going to win much in 2018 anyway.
The Cowboys got the WR1 they’ve been searching for since releasing Dez Bryant, but at a steep cost. The Raiders got the return they’d been looking for, but gave up a 24-year-old with two Pro Bowl seasons under his belt in the process. It’s a boom-or-bust deal in both directions, which is delightful if you don’t have any stake in either team.
Cowboys’ grade: B-
Raiders’ grade: B+
The Lions beefed up their run defense by adding Damon Harrison from the Giants
Lions get: DT Damon Harrison
Giants get: 2019 fifth-round pick
Detroit ranked dead last in the league in rushing defense through seven weeks, allowing 5.3 yards per carry to opposing ballcarriers. That’s down to 5.1 — and “up” to 30th in the NFL — after the addition of Harrison, a 341-pound lane-clogger who is only a season removed from a first-team All-Pro selection. Just days after getting traded, Harrison made his Lions debut and racked up seven tackles, two tackles for loss, and a sack.
“Snacks” is a low-risk acquisition for first-year head coach Matt Patricia; he’s signed through 2020 and while he’s due $16.25 million in his final two seasons, he can also be cut while leaving just $3.2 million of dead cap on the Lions’ books should things go south in the NFC North.
Patricia’s team has lacked consistency in his first season, but its 3-4 start means Detroit is only one game behind the division-leading Bears. Getting a peak Harrison — Pro Football Focus labels him 2018’s top run defender— in the lineup, alongside a finally healthy Ziggy Ansah (he’s missed six of his team’s seven games this fall due to a shoulder injury), will transform the Lions’ defensive front.
As for the Giants, a fifth-round pick seems like selling low, especially six days before the trade deadline. The move ups the team’s draft capital in 2019, which should be the team’s sole focus in another cratering year, but could they have gotten more?
Lions’ grade: A-
Giants’ grade: C-
Eli Apple is an immediate starter for the Saints secondary
Giants get: 2019 fourth-round pick, 2020 seventh-round pick
Apple’s tumultuous tenure in New York came to a close with a trade to New Orleans, the NFL’s unofficial stop for every Ohio State defensive back in the league. The former No. 10 overall pick had an immediate impact as a rookie, but his 2017 campaign saw him struggle as reports of locker room tensions and clashes with the Giants’ coaching staff led to a team-mandated suspension late in the season.
That left him vulnerable as New York marches toward a culture- and roster-changing rebuild, and the Saints took advantage. Apple had been a useful starter for the Giants this fall, providing adequate to above-average support in the passing game but still showing off lapses when it comes to tackling. Still, he’s got first-round talent and is now playing in a loaded secondary filled with players who he once shared a Buckeye practice field.
Less than a week after his final game with the Giants, Apple was in the starting lineup for the Saints in a primetime matchup against Kirk Cousins and the Vikings. Apple played almost every defensive snap and led the Saints in tackles with nine.
New Orleans’ resurgent 2017 defense has backslid this season, and the passing defense bears much of that responsibility. Only the Buccaneers and Lions have been worse against opposing quarterbacks in 2018. Apple helps mitigate the loss of Patrick Robinson, who was lost for the year with an ankle injury, and has already usurped Ken Crawley in the starting lineup. Although far from perfect, Apple and the Saints secondary put together a respectable performance against the Vikings
New Orleans is in position to glean the best out of a former top 10 pick — but if it can’t, the Saints can walk away from his rookie contract without picking up his fifth-year option after the 2019 season.
Saints’ grade: B+
Giants’ grade: B
The Jaguars acquired Carlos Hyde from the Browns to power their run game
Jaguars get: RB Carlos Hyde
Browns get: 2019 fifth-round pick
Leonard Fournette has been battling a hamstring strain all season and Corey Grant is now on injured reserve with a Lisfranc injury. That’s left T.J. Yeldon and not much else to power a Jacksonville offense in the midst of an identity crisis. This necessitated the trade for Hyde, who was the Browns’ leading rusher and scorer at the time of his departure even though he’d averaged a career-low 3.4 yards per carry in Cleveland.
The Jaguars get a player who has run for more than 1,900 yards in 2016 and 2017 and a 230-pound battering ram who can find the end zone; Hyde had scored 19 touchdowns in his last 35 games before coming to Jacksonville. They’re also getting a player whose efficiency has declined in each of the past two seasons and who was a non-factor in the Browns’ passing game. His first game with the Jaguars was disappointing, with just six carries for 11 yards.
That will be a lot less concerning once Fournette’s back in the lineup, and if Hyde doesn’t work out, he can be cut in 2019 without any repercussions to the Jags’ cap sheet.
Cleveland gets a Day 3 pick in a player-for-pick swap that harkens back to the glory days of former GM Sashi Brown. Hyde will be missed in short-yardage situations, but shipping him to Florida clears space for rookie Nick Chubb to step into the spotlight. This season, Chubb has almost doubled Hyde’s yards-per-carry at 6.1; now the Browns get to see if he can be a featured back or if he’s just a home-run hitting piece of a platoon.
Jaguars’ grade: B
Browns’ grade: B