For teams making one last push to make the Super Bowl, the NFL trade deadline is often the final opportunity to add talent to get a roster over the top. At times it can be costly, but no one will mind if it helps bring home a championship.<\/p>\n
In 2024, the Lions were in desperate need of pass rush and traded a 2025 fifth and sixth-round pick for Za\u2019Darius Smith and a 2026 seventh-round pick. The move certainly helped the Lions\u2019 pass rush down the stretch without Aidan Hutchinson, but ultimately the move busted when Detroit failed to win a playoff game.<\/p>\n
This year, the Lions were somewhat criticized for staying put. Despite similar questions at defensive end, injuries and issues on the offensive line, and maybe even some questions at safety, the Lions opted not to make a move this year.<\/p>\n
Now that we\u2019re into the second round of the 2025-26 NFL playoffs, let\u2019s revisit the big trades made in November to see how the active teams fared in their trade deadline moves\u2014and if the Lions missed out on any golden opportunities.<\/p>\n
Eagles got: EDGE Jaelan PhillipsDolphins got: 2026 third-round pick<\/p>\n
The Eagles got bounced in the first round of the playoffs after losing the San Francisco 49ers<\/p>\n
Phillips did bring a lot of extra pass rush juice to the Eagles. Though he only finished with 2.0 sacks in eight games, he did post 41 pressures in those games while also being a plus in the run game (69.2 PFF grade).<\/p>\n
Will he be sticking around? <\/p>\n
Hard to say, but this feels like a one-year rental. Phillips was on his fifth-year option with the Dolphins, making his acquisition not very costly for the Eagles in terms of cap space. Phillips will be looking for a big payday this offseason, and the Eagles are working within a tight budget.<\/p>\n
Eagles got: CB Jaire Alexander, 2027 seventh-round pickRavens got: 2026 sixth-round pick<\/p>\n
Still bounced in the first round.<\/p>\n
He lasted less than two weeks with the Eagles before he announced he\u2019s stepping away from football to focus on his physical and mental health.<\/p>\n
Will he be sticking around? <\/p>\n
The Eagles were active at the trade deadline, but not at the right place. Their offense was terrible and cost them the season. The one-year rental on Phillips certainly made their defense better, but it certainly wasn\u2019t worth it when the other side of the ball was so poor that they were never going to make a championship run.<\/p>\n
Chargers got: OT Trevor PenningSaints got: 2027 sixth-round pick<\/p>\n
Bounced in the first round of the playoffs in an uncompetitive game vs. the Patriots.<\/p>\n
Not great. In five games with the Chargers, he allowed 11 pressures, two sacks, and produced a 52.5 pass blocking grade. He was eventually benched and was used mostly as a jumbo package sixth offensive lineman.<\/p>\n
Will he be sticking around?<\/p>\n
The Chargers were in desperate times, having lost both starting offensive tackles. So this was a low-risk, low-cost move. Still, it was a complete waste, as the Chargers\u2019 pass protection remained a huge liability and Justin Herbert taking six sacks in the Wild Card round is further proof of that.<\/p>\n
Seahawks got: WR Rashid ShaheedSaints got: 2026 fourth-round pick, 2026 fifth-round pick<\/p>\n
Earned the NFC\u2019s top seed and a first-round bye. Obviously, still alive in the playoffs.<\/p>\n
Unsurprisingly, it took a few weeks to get Shaheed going. He caught just four passes for 37 yards in his first four games with Seattle\u2014playing around 50% of the snaps. In the next two games, he caught nine passes for 141 yards. But in the final three games, he\u2019s just contributed two catches for 10 yards.<\/p>\n
Overall, he has just 15 catches for 188 yards and zero touchdowns with the Seahawks.<\/p>\n
That said, it certainly could be argued that he\u2019s taken some heat off of wide receiver Jaxon Smith-Njigba. But the splits in his stats pre and post-trade aren\u2019t all that different:<\/p>\n
Smith-Njigba pre-trade (eight games): 58 catches, 948 yards, 4 TDs
Smith-Njigba post-trade (nine games): 61 catches, 845 yards, 6 TDs<\/p>\n
EDIT: As pointed out by many, I overlooked Shaheed\u2019s contributions on special teams. Shaheed has both a punt and kick return touchdown in just nine games played with the Seahawks. His 58-yard punt return touchdown against the Rams sparked a huge fourth-quarter comeback in a pivotal game this season.<\/p>\n
Will he be sticking around?<\/p>\n
Hard to know. His contract voids this upcoming offseason, so it will be up to the Seahawks.<\/p>\n
I think it\u2019s safe to say they haven\u2019t gotten what they wanted out of Shaheed, but if he can have a strong postseason, it will have still been worth it.<\/p>\n
Cowboys got: DT Quinnen WilliamsJets got: 2026 second-round pick, 2027 first-round pick, DT Mazi Smith<\/p>\n
Dallas missed the playoffs, largely because of their terrible defense. Even after Williams\u2019 addition, the Cowboys allowed an average of 29.25 points per game.<\/p>\n
Pretty good, honestly. He produced an 88.8 PFF run defense grade with the Cowboys, and tallied a whopping 32 pressures in seven games, despite only tallying 1.5 sacks. Initially, he was a big help in the team\u2019s run defense, helping hold the Raiders to 27 rushing yards and the Eagles to 63. But for the remainder of the season, Dallas still allowed 126.0 rushing yards per game.<\/p>\n
Will he be sticking around? <\/p>\n
Yes. He is under contract for two more seasons with the Cowboys with only $5 million in guarantees left. So despite big salaries over the next two seasons ($20.75M, $25.5M), Dallas has complete control over the 28-year-old\u2019s future.<\/p>\n
This was a more long-term move made for the Cowboys in the hopes they can turn around a porous defense following the trade of Micah Parsons to begin the season. Williams is an absolute beast, but whether he can carry a terrible Dallas defense into even mediocrity is very much still a big question.<\/p>\n
Cowboys got: LB Logan WilsonBengals got: 2026 seventh-round pick<\/p>\n
As a subpackage player, Wilson logged 224 defensive snaps over seven games and managed 24 tackles, a pass deflection, and a forced fumble. But as mentioned before, the Cowboys defense still stunk. Wilson logged PFF grades below 60 in run defense (54.7), coverage (52.3), and pass rush (59.3).<\/p>\n
Maybe, but he\u2019s a bit costly. Wilson is still under contract for two more seasons, but he has salaries of $6 million and $6.66 million with zero guaranteed money. Wilson didn\u2019t even play in Week 17, so he clearly wasn\u2019t making a great impression. Plus, with a defensive coordinator change coming in Dallas, it remains to be seen whether Wilson will stick.<\/p>\n
Because this wasn\u2019t a costly move, I won\u2019t kill the Cowboys for it, but it clearly didn\u2019t add much to the team.<\/p>\n
Colts got: CB Sauce GardnerJets got: 2026 first-round pick, 2027 first-round pick, WR Adonai Mitchell<\/p>\n
After an injury to QB Daniel Jones, the Colts\u2019 season torpedoed, finishing on a seven-game losing streak and missing the playoffs at 8-9.<\/p>\n
Unfortunately, Gardner only played four games with the Colts after suffering a calf injury that caused him to miss a month of the season. He returned late in Week 17, but sat in a meaningless Week 18 game.<\/p>\n
When he was on the field, Gardner provided the type of play you\u2019d expect. He allowed just seven catches for 51 yards on 13 targets, including three pass breakups.<\/p>\n
Definitely. Gardner signed a four-year extension with the Jets earlier in 2025, so he remains under contract through the 2030 season. He\u2019ll cost just $9.5 million against the cap next year before his cap hit jumps to around $21 million and a lot more in the subsequent seasons.<\/p>\n
Obviously, the Colts got hit with some bad luck in the back half of the season, but such is the risk of trade deadline moves. That said, whether this trade was smart or not is still very much to be determined, because this was just as much of a long-term move as it was a short-term one.<\/p>\n
Bears got: EDGE Joe Tryon-Shoyinka, 2026 seventh-round pickBrowns got: 2026 sixth-round pick<\/p>\n
The Bears won the NFC North and advanced past the Wild Card round after beating the Packers.<\/p>\n
Tryon-Shoyinka hasn\u2019t provided much of a spark. Though he\u2019s playing around 20 snaps a game, he\u2019s produced just five pressures, zero sacks, and 13 tackles (one for loss). That said, he has produced an adequate 67.2 run defense grade and 69.7 overall grade. He did not play in the team\u2019s Wild Card game nor in Week 18 as he continues to recover from a concussion.<\/p>\n
His addition has not produced any noticeable change with their defense. They are still a pretty leaky unit with a slow pass rush, poor run defense, but high on generating turnovers.<\/p>\n
Maybe. He is not under contract, but he should come relatively cheap.<\/p>\n
It was a low-risk move at a position the Bears were shorthanded at due to injury. I think they got about as much value as you could have realistically expected out of a small-priced trade.<\/p>\n
Jaguars got: WR Jakobi MeyersRaiders got: 2025 fourth-round pick, 2025 sixth-round pick<\/p>\n
The Jaguars finished the regular season with an eight-game winning streak, winning their third AFC South division title in the past 25 years. They did get bounced in the first round of the playoffs, though, after a nailbiter against the Bills.<\/p>\n
Meyers was a very strong contributor for the Jaguars down the stretch. In nine games (seven starts), Meyers caught 42 passes for 483 yards and three touchdowns. Over those nine weeks, he ranked 20th among all NFL receivers in yardage.<\/p>\n
However, Meyers only had a single catch for 12 yards in the team\u2019s playoff game.<\/p>\n
Yes! The Jaguars already gave him a three-year, $60 million contract extension with $40 million guaranteed.<\/p>\n
Without a doubt, this was the best trade deadline move made this year. Meyers gave the Jaguars an offensive bump, helped the team finish on an absolute tear, and he\u2019ll be part of the team\u2019s long-term future. With this just being Year 1 of the offensive system under head coach Liam Coen, the future could be bright for Jacksonville and Meyers.<\/p>\n
Outside of the Meyers trade, I don\u2019t think you can point to another trade deadline move where the move was an undeniable success. There were a lot of underwhelming moves, some low-cost, low-reward moves, and a few one-year rentals that didn\u2019t pay off. The Gardner trade is a reminder of the risk of trying to go all-in for a single year\u2014injuries happen\u2014but that could still be a positive trade if the Colts bounce back in 2026.<\/p>\n
The most interesting of the trades, to me, was the Eagles move for Jaelan Phillips. Without a doubt, they got a talented player who helped elevate their defense. But with such a struggling offense, it still seems like a wasted move for a team that had little chance of winning their second Super Bowl in a row. If Phillips re-signs with the team and the Eagles figure things out this offseason on offense, it could still be a move that pays off, but like the rest of these trades, it seems like an overall fail.<\/p>\n
Now, if the Lions had made that move? Well, yeah, maybe it would\u2019ve worked out better. They certainly had a better offense than the Eagles this year. However, they really needed more help on the offensive line, and the only move made at that position was an ineffective trade made by the Chargers.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"For teams making one last push to make the Super Bowl, the NFL trade deadline is often the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":676854,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[2071],"tags":[146,113,449,2506,7,147,6],"class_list":{"0":"post-676853","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-detroit-lions","8":"tag-detroit","9":"tag-detroit-lions","10":"tag-detroit-lions-analysis","11":"tag-detroitlions","12":"tag-football","13":"tag-lions","14":"tag-nfl"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/676853","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=676853"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/676853\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/676854"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=676853"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=676853"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=676853"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}