Halloween is one of the best holidays of the year. Who doesn’t love candy and the opportunity to get creative and wear a fun costume while having a good time with friends? The added bonus for Halloween in 2023 is NFL Trading deadline is at 4pm ET! With the deadline less than two weeks away, it’s a good time more than ever to evaluate which players need to move in order to revive their careers and/or dig themselves out of a bad situation.
Here’s a look at 10 NFL players who would be better off trading their current jersey for a new one, not as a Halloween costume, but as a full-time swap.
Davante Adams is one of the best wide receivers in football. His 17 touchdowns are the most in the NFL since the start of the 2022 season. He has also been named First-Team All-Pro in each of the past three seasons. However, his goal is not just to be one of today’s great receivers. Adams wants to be known as one of the best receivers ever He concluded his football journey in Canton, Ohio as a member of the Pro Football Hall of Fame.
During his first nine seasons in the NFL, Adams recorded 769 receptions for 9,637 receiving yards and 87 receiving touchdowns. Only one other player in league history has surpassed 750 catches, 9,500 receiving yards and 85 touchdowns in his first nine seasons: future Pro Football Hall of Famer Marvin Harrison.
However, Adams’ Hall of Fame path could be in jeopardy if he stays in Las Vegas much longer. He went three straight games without a touchdown or 100 receiving yards from Weeks 4-6. This also happened in Weeks 13-15 of last season, his first with the Raiders. The last time it happened to him as a Green Bay Packer, his home in the NFL during his first eight seasons from 2014-2021, was Weeks 14-17 of the 2015 season, his second year as a pro.
Adams was also incredibly unhappy with the Raiders’ performance during their 3-3 start this season, saying, Via KSNV News 3 Las Vegas“You can win a game and look bad, and we’ve done that many times.”
He initially came to the Raiders to win and continue to put up numbers trying to prove he can do both without Aaron Rodgers. Adams made one of his spots with a First-Team All-Pro season in 2022. If he really wants to win and keep his Hall of Fame dreams alive, he’d be better off elsewhere.
The Carolina Panthers are the last team in the NFL to go 0-6, and they need a lot of help along the offensive line, at wide receiver and in the secondary to name a few. The problem is that they traded their 2024 first-round pick and their 2025 second-round pick to the Chicago Bears as part of a package to move up eight spots to select quarterback Bryce Young first overall in 2023. NFL draft.
Two-time Pro Bowl outside linebacker Brian Burns, 25, deserves better. Since the turn of the decade in 2020, he has been one of the NFL’s biggest disruptors, but Burns has yet to reach the postseason.
Brian Burns stats from 2020
|
QB pressures |
191 |
The tenth |
|
bags |
34.5 |
Ninth |
|
Deals with loss |
45 |
T-5 |
a year ago, The Los Angeles Rams reportedly offered multiple picks in the first round to pair Burns alongside three-time NFL Defensive Player of the Year Aaron Donald on their defensive line, but the Panthers chose not to accept the deal. Now is a good time to buy Burns, who has a contract year. It would be a win-win since Carolina could get much-needed draft capital, and Burns could play for a winning team in 2023.
Everything can change in two years in the NFL. In 2021, Hunter Renfrow totaled 103 catches for 1,038 yards and nine touchdowns to earn the first Pro Bowl selection of his career. The Raiders then rewarded him with a two-year, $32 million contract extension in the 2022 offseason. However, he has not been a fit for coach Josh McDaniels’ offense since 2022. His best attribute is his ability to move his routes and drift into open space to make himself available to the quarterback.
McDaniels’ offense relies on structure, and that was simply inappropriate. This season, Renfrow has just six catches for 59 yards on nine targets despite playing in all six games. He’s been targeted just twice in the past two weeks, including not being targeted at all in the Raiders’ 21-17 win over the New England Patriots in Week 7, a game in which he had just seven offensive snaps. It didn’t help that Las Vegas signed former New England Patriots Jacoby Myers to a three-year, $33 million contract last offseason to play a similar role as Renfrow outside the slot.
At only 27 years old, Renfrow can still provide a lot of value to another team’s offense if given a chance to succeed, something that currently doesn’t exist with McDaniels.
Chase Young was named NFL Defensive Rookie of the Year in 2020 after leading his rookie class in sacks with 7.5, but his career has been rough since then. He tore down his nine AFL appearances in the 2021 season, and did not return to action until the final three games of the 2022 season. That uncertainty from 2020 led to the Chiefs declining the fifth-year option on their former second-year pick, making him a free agent after the 2023 season. .
After another year out of injury, the 24-year-old Young is back in form. His 31 quarterback pressures this season are fifth-most in the NFL, and his 6.2 pressures per game rank second in the league to Raiders Pro Bowler Maxx Crosby (6.3 pressures per game). However, the trade will do wonders for him because it will get him out of a bad situation. Before the Chiefs’ 24-16 win over the Atlanta Falcons, Washington had allowed 33 or more points in each of their previous four games.
In the win over the Falcons on Sunday, they were outgained by 209 total yards (402 to 193), the most by any team in a win this season. A lot of that has to do with Washington’s leaky secondary as the 248.2 yards allowed per game ranks sixth in the league this season. The Commanders’ 2023 first-round pick, cornerback Emmanuel Forbes, has struggled to adapt to the NFL with his six-foot-tall, 180-pound frame. He had no snaps in Week 6, and his 401 yards allowed in coverage were the second-most yards allowed in coverage in the NFL from Weeks 1 through 5, ahead of only Arizona Cardinals cornerback Marco Wilson’s 423 in that span.
Offensively, quarterback Sam Howell may struggle to stay healthy considering he has racked up 34 sacks in six games, the third-most sacks during a team’s first few games in the league. power era since 1966. The inability to stay upright comes despite the Chiefs facing the sixth-lowest offense rate (24.2%) in the NFL this season. Young is in a bad position, but he can lift the opposition’s defense to new heights if given the opportunity.
Defensive end Carl Lawson was once viewed as a key part of the New York Jets’ rebuild as they signed him to a three-year, $45 million contract in the 2021 offseason. He tore his Achilles tendon in 2021, and after starting all 17 games In 2022 he recorded seven sacks, the second-most in a single season of his career, and now finds himself on the outside looking in when it comes to playing time in 2023.
New York is the only team in the NFL to have three players with 25 or more quarterback pressures this season, but none of them are Lawson: linebacker Bryce Huff (33 pressures, fourth in the NFL), and defensive lineman John Franklin Myers (26, tied for 13th in the NFL) and defensive tackle Quinnen Williams (25, tied for 16th in the NFL).
Lawson received a season-low 14 snaps (20% of defensive snaps) in Week 4 against the Kansas City Chiefs, and was a healthy scratch in Week 5. Lawson had 21 defensive snaps in Week 6 in the 20-14 win. On the Philadelphia Eagles, he accounted for 30% of New York’s defensive snaps, his highest rate of the season. There is no longer a place in New York for the 28-year-old, but he could still provide some juice for another team to pass on.
Washington’s 25-year-old Antonio Gibson appears to be on his way to turning pro after his first two seasons in the NFL. He totaled more than 1,000 yards from scrimmage and double-digit scrimmage touchdowns in each of his first two seasons in 2020 and 2021, including the only 1,000-yard rushing season of his career in 2021 when he totaled 1,037 yards on the ground.
However, Gibson’s rushing opportunity has diminished significantly since the Chiefs drafted running back Brian Robinson Jr. in the third round of the 2022 NFL Draft. Robinson totaled 56 more carries than Gibson in 2022 despite Gibson playing in three other games, and that gap has only widened in 2023. Robinson has 61 more carries (77-16) than Gibson through six games this season.
Given his age as well as his versatility as a pass rusher – 124 catches (11th in the NFL among running backs from 2020-2022) and 894 yards (12th in the NFL among running backs from 2020-2022) in… His first three seasons – Gibson could be a valuable contributor for a team whose backfield needs more explosion. He simply will not have the opportunity to be a meaningful part of the offense as long as he is in Washington.
Zack Ertz was one of the best tight ends in the NFL, earning three straight Pro Bowl selections from 2017-2019. He even holds the record for the most catches in a single season by a tight end with 116 in 2018. While the 32-year-old has slowed down a bit since joining the Arizona Cardinals in 2021, Ertz could provide a solid target in the red zone for a team looking to… To compete in the qualifiers.
That’s not his current status as a member of the 1-5 Arizona Cardinals. A reunion with the Eagles could make sense as well as joining a number of other teams in need of another strong pair of hands.
Derek Barnett will forever have a special place in the hearts of Philadelphia Eagles fans everywhere after his sacking of New England Patriots quarterback Tom Brady helped secure the franchise’s only Super Bowl win in the 2017 season.
Fast forward to 2023, and the defensive end has mostly fallen out of the Eagles’ defensive line rotation. He suffered a torn ACL in Week 1 of the 2022 season, and has been unable to take 20 snaps in all six of Philadelphia’s games this season. The Eagles’ defensive front is a strength as they use Pro Bowler Haason Reddick, franchise star Brandon Graham, Pro Bowler Josh Sweat, and 2023 first-round pick Nolan Smith at their defensive rushing positions.
The Super Bowl champion is still just 27 years old after being selected 14th overall in the 2017 NFL Draft, and could be a great piece in the rotation for a team that has a little more playing time along its defensive line.
The Denver Broncos are having a mess in year one under new coach Sean Payton. They started 1-5, tied for their worst six-game start in team history. The defense has allowed 33.3 points per game this season, the most in the NFL. Even when their defense is good, they still lose. Denver lost 19-8 to the Super Bowl champion Kansas City Chiefs in Week 6. They have allowed fewer than 20 points in 12 games since the start of the 2022 season, but have a 4-8 record in those games.
While Payton Broncos said,They are not looking to do business” With their players before the trade deadline, they already did just that, flipping defensive lineman Randy Gregory to the San Francisco 49ers and releasing outside linebacker Frank Clark.
Courtland Sutton (37 goals) and Jerry Jeudy (29 goals) have been the most used pass rushers in Denver’s offense this season, but Denver would be wise to try to flip them for more draft compensation. Sutton has had four touchdowns already this season, the same amount he had in each of the previous two seasons combined. Jeudy was the 15th overall pick in the 2020 NFL Draft, so there may be some teams willing to bite the 24-year-old given his draft pedigree. Both would be more appropriate elsewhere in a less disruptive environment.