Ten 2026 NFL Trade Deadline Deals We’d Love to See

Maxx Crosby and Saquon Barkley get sent to playoff contenders, while three teams deal for quarterbacks.

The Texans unofficially kicked off the trade deadline season with their attempt to revive Marvin Harrison Jr.’s career. Getting Harrison out of Arizona was a two-pronged maneuver for Houston, a team that imagined it would not be picking in the top 20 this season and both saw this as a potential high-upside maneuver at limited cost, and as a signal to the team that 2026 was not lost.

This season is particularly interesting given that we have a few consistent contenders winding down toward a rebuild. The Eagles and Colts, in particular, profile as classic “sellers.” The Jets, while not a contender, have a roster that is structured similarly to the pre-contention era Texans in that there are a good number of shoppable veteran pieces on short-term contracts that could aid contenders. While I am of the opinion that this Jets turnaround could be a quick one if the right (eventual) replacement for Aaron Glenn is hired, there is always a difficult balancing act in determining who might be good enough to help for the future and who might be worth sacrificing for draft assets. Every team is undergoing that assessment right now, with the Nov. 10 deadline fast approaching.

Every year, I like to offer my personal dream trades. I would hope that regular enjoyers of this particular column see my dreams as realistic ones, but with just a hint of whimsy. My individual dreams often relate to whether I can convince my family to order buffalo chicken pizza for dinner for a third night this week, or whether an eBay user will accept my offer of $4.65 for a used copy of IT in paperback that is selling for $7. So, I am not the kind of person shipping Justin Jefferson to the Seahawks. Like Albert Einstein once suggested, life is about the pursuit of happy modesty. 

With that, let’s dive in.

MORE: 2026 NFL Trade Deadline: Tracking Every Major Move Across the NFL

Kathryn Riley/Getty Images; Julian Leshay Guadalupe/NorthJersey.com/USA TODAY Network/Imagn Images; Andy Lewis/Getty Images. Illustration by Bryce Wood/Sports Illustrated.

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Raiders edge Maxx Crosby to the Giants

Crosby is playing really well this year. His old man strength has arrived long before he should be considered an old man, and has combined with his traditional over-willingness to stop the run and agility in rushing the passer. Crosby would be a valuable asset for teams hoping to upgrade both their ability to pressure the quarterback and set the edge. The Giants may seem unorthodox for a partner, but I wonder if including Kayvon Thibodeaux in the deal could offset some of the cost. The initial Crosby asking price was two first-round picks, when he was nearly dealt last offseason. Thibodeux is four years younger than Crosby and may wind up cheaper, even on the incredible $29 million APY the Raiders’ defensive end currently makes on his own second contract.

But this move is about more than helping the Giants stay alive in the NFC East. It’s about setting a tone. John Harbaugh has spent the year filtering the roster of non-Harbaugh types, or punishing the players who are erring on the non-Harbaugh side of the line. Jaxson Dart was put on notice with the J.J. McCarthy trade, whether intentionally or not. Dexter Lawrence II was dealt. Cam Skattebo was benched for a week (in theory). When Thibodeaux was brought up after the Lawrence trade in April, Harbaugh did not immediately suggest that Thibodeaux was untradable (even though the narrative on that was eventually cleaned up). Offering the athletic Thibodeaux—who is on perhaps the best three-game run of his career and nearly had a game-sealing drop-back pick deep in the zone on Sunday—as a kind of preextension trial for the Raiders, could at least form the runway for more substantive trade talks. Crosby could wind down his career as a megastar in the sport’s biggest market for a team that has favorable odds to win the NFC East.

While we can argue the merits of pushing to win what looks like the worst division in the NFL, Harbaugh’s program-altering path needs a pelt on the wall heading into Year 2. The Giants are 27th in pressure percentage among defenses and 18th against the run. Crosby would solve both of those problems and unleash Abdul Carter on the opposite side.  

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Saquon Barkley is one of several players who won a Super Bowl in Philadelphia but now may be trade assets. | IMAGN IMAGES via Reuters Connect

Eagles RB Saquon Barkley to the Bengals

Stick with me here. The other day I was watching Drake London essentially being used as an H-back in the Falcons’ offense. That look made me think back to a conversation I had with folks at Army, who are used to playing with chronically undersized talent and believe it’s less about burying someone with a block and more about simply redirecting someone in your path. Combine that with what coaches believe will be a continuous rise in the usage of 21-personnel, or two-back offenses.

What if Barkley and Chase Brown could play together. Barkley would give Joe Burrow a dangerous checkdown weapon and what he and Brown could do on the field at the same time is force heavier personnel onto the field, which would shave off some extra help normally earmarked for Tee Higgins and Ja’Marr Chase. We’re still waiting to see what comes of the great promise of a truly versatile, two-headed Bengals offense. The Bengals are a middle-of-the-road run team in terms of efficiency but have the athleticism up front to block up big plays with just their front five. While it’s not the Eagles’ 2024 offensive line, it’s not the Giants’ 2023 offensive line, either. Barkley would provide pass-catching volume and a more experienced every-down back who can pass protect. Brown has been asked to protect the passer at about 25% of the volume Barkley has over the years, and while much of the focus has been Barkley’s poor pass protection of late, he can be an able pass protector and was during the Eagles’ 2024 Super Bowl season. Again, Brown has been in situations where he can pass block and run block just a few dozen times per season, but he’s a bigger body and has had a high success rate on the downs where he’s been asked to be a lead blocker (mostly jet sweeps and other unorthodox trick plays). 

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Eagles G Landon Dickerson to the Packers

Josh Jacobs has his most success as an A- and B-gap runner. That’s where the highest volume of his carries have gone throughout his career and the highest EPA per carry. The Packers have found something in Laken Tomlinson—what’s a step below lightning in a bottle?—and still have Kevin Zeitler working his way back to playing speed. Mekhi Becton Sr. was also recently promoted from the active roster. Green Bay has had a miserable time cycling through interior offensive linemen and Nelson is one of the greatest guards in modern football history.

While there is obviously a concern with giving up more picks for talented players, Brian Gutekunst is already pot committed to this Packers team. Jordan Love is in the middle of his prime and I think a normal assumption would be that the 6–0 Vikings will come back to earth at some point. The Lions and Bears are both in the bottom half of the NFL in EPA against the rush and with games against the Rams, Bills, Bears and Texans still on their schedule, the Packers need more capability to sustain drives and keep the ball away from other high-powered offenses. Green Bay is currently 28th in the NFL in average drive time, which places a major burden on the defense. 

We can ask ourselves how much more of an improvement the 28-year-old would be over the sea of veteran bandages the team has already signed. It’s certainly a fair question. Dickerson has center versatility and was the 2020 Rimington Trophy winner as the best guard in the country at Alabama. The Packers had to plug in their third-string center, John Williams, to take his first career NFL snaps Sunday against the Lions.

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Saints QB Spencer Rattler to the Browns

This may seem unfair after the 5–2 Browns have reached a place of near-comfort at the quarterback position. The Browns are in first place in the division despite Deshaun Watson hanging around the mid-to-late-20s in EPA per play. Watson is also near the top of the NFL in turnover-worthy plays. And while you can argue that this season has been the runway toward Watson rediscovering his skill set as a quarterback, we can also argue that Watson is operating with an excellent play-caller and some YAC-machine wide receivers while also still walking the turnover tightrope on a down-to-down basis.

I initially had Kirk Cousins here, but I like the idea of the Browns taking a little bit higher of an upside shot on the 26-year-old Rattler, who lost his job toward the end of last year to Tyler Shough. With the Saints facing a pivotal draft in 2026, Rattler could be a trade chip for second-year coach Kellen Moore, who may make a play at the quarterback position in the draft anyway, leaving Shough as a higher-upside QB2. I am one of NFL media’s largest Rattler apologists, but it’s impossible to argue that Rattler didn’t see major growth from Year 1 (2024) to last season in almost every metric you would care about from a quarterback (big-time throw percentage, pressure to sack rate and adjusted completion percentage all went up).

I think the idea of turning to Shedeur Sanders is a nonstarter for Todd Monken, which is why he knew he had to cling to Watson during the most uncomfortable portions of the offseason. Lest we forget, that peaked in a near fan revolt at the beginning of the season. With Sanders hiring an agent and potentially looking for an exit strategy, perhaps Monken has gotten enough clout with his new team and owner to go out and get a backup quarterback of his own choosing.

The other part about Watson that needs to be addressed: He has a lengthy injury history. Watson in the past three years has torn his rotator cuff and Achilles, then reruptured the same Achilles. Even if you are fully bought in on Watson’s comeback arc (on the field), Browns fans have to be concerned about the idea of having little playable depth behind Watson that would keep the team afloat in the event of an injury. 

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If the Colts are truly in fire sale mode, Tyler Warren could be an intriguing trade chip. | USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect

Colts TE Tyler Warren to the Chiefs

O.K., if no one is off limits, as goes the conventional wisdom when it comes to the Colts, give me Warren. The second-year tight end is a solid run blocker with room to grow, which is very different from Travis Kelce, who is having a pretty good run-blocking season but just turned 37. Kelce finally showed flashes of his age in Sunday’s loss to the Seahawks, and the Chiefs are looking at a very different kind of first place than they were a week ago. My chief complaint (sorry …) about Kansas City heading into the season was a lack of movable chess pieces in the running game that could amplify Kenneth Walker III. Noah Gray is a great pass blocker out of 12-personnel, but we’ve also been seeing some needed snaps from Jake Briningstool (though they’ve decreased by the week). The Chiefs are one of the heaviest 12-personnel teams in the NFL (one back, two tight ends), which makes sense given the deficiencies along the offensive line and the strength of the offense right now: Walker.

Given that the Seahawks showed the rest of the league what happens to this offense when it cannot bludgeon its opponents into submission, the need to evolve the run game has already presented itself. Warren is more than just a tight end, he’s a fullback, an H-back and a capable wide receiver, solving a handful of options for a Chiefs team in need of both weapons and blocking. 

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49ers QB Mac Jones to the Eagles, FA QB Jimmy Garoppolo to the 49ers

As colleague Albert Breer wrote about at length, the Eagles are staring down a hard reset year after a decade of aggressive spending. No one should complain about this, by the way. The Eagles won two Super Bowls and reached a third. They are now looking at a situation in which Jalen Hurts is taking anticoagulants for blood clots, having come off multiple down seasons and a budding sample size in which he has been hot and cold (to put it generously). Outside of the Titans game in Week 2, signature Hurts moments post–Super Bowl LIX have been difficult to come by. You can argue that the best moments of the Sean Mannion offense to this point came on Monday night against the Cowboys with Tanner McKee under center.

I’ve long predicted that the Eagles and Hurts will not make it to the end of this contract, and right now it’s impossible to gauge Hurts’s trade market until we know what becomes of his health. So I racked my brain to find an affordable option for the Eagles, who will almost certainly also try to emerge from the other side of their financial rebuild with a quarterback on a cost-controlled rookie contract. That plan necessitates a high-upside bridge quarterback (if, as in this scenario, the Eagles are either done with Hurts or Hurts is still not healthy enough to play next year). Jones will turn 29 before the start of next season. He’ll need a raise over the two-year, $8.5 million contract he’s currently operating under, but Jones’s expertise in the Kyle Shanahan offense makes him an easier pair with a new prospective play-caller, or as a partner for Mannion, who coached in the Shanahan-adjacent Matt LaFleur system.   

This trade, of course, would not occur if the 49ers did not have a backup en route. While this part isn’t a trade, per se, it involves Garoppolo coming back to his former home to backstop Brock Purdy. The 49ers have legitimate title aspirations after starting the season on one of the league’s longest winning streaks and Shanahan enjoyed above replacement-level play from Jones when Purdy was injured last season. Given that he’s needed to play multiple quarterbacks in every season as 49ers head coach, Shanahan would not part ways with an incredible bargain like Jones if he didn’t have someone able to run his system. (Interestingly enough, to make this a mind-boggling detective board of red string, if the Chargers moved on from Mike McDaniel, McDaniel could return to San Francisco and reinstall his gun-adapted version of the Shanahan run game, as Garoppolo prefers the shotgun to the more traditional under-center looks the offense normally demands.)

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If the Raiders want to turn the offense over to rookie Fernando Mendoza, they could deal Kirk Cousins at the deadline. | IMAGN IMAGES via Reuters Connect

Raiders QB Kirk Cousins to the Vikings

The more I think about it, the more this needs to happen. Carson Wentz is a perfectly capable fort-holder. Kyler Murray is playing slightly above the median line of acceptable quarterback play. The Vikings are 28th in EPA per play among offenses over the past four weeks and, despite the revival of Aaron Jones, it is no secret how dependent this team is on its historically great defense. Kevin O’Connell has been great about, at the very least, maintaining one of the longest-driving offenses in the NFL, allowing Brian Flores’s defense ample time to rest. The issue is what happens on those drives. Minnesota actually has a comparable percentage of drives that end in points to Ben Johnson’s Bears. Unfortunately, the Vikings are one of the worst teams in the NFL in terms of drives ending in touchdowns (31st, less than a percentage better than—shudders—the Chargers). Maybe O’Connell interprets this as merely a statistical anomaly that will be corrected as Murray gains more experience in the offense, or maybe he’s looking at the reality that this Vikings defense may never be this good again and he can’t simply settle at the quarterback position.

Thought experiment: Let’s say the Vikings’ defense ends the regular season as one of the 10 greatest modern-day units ever in terms of DVOA … and loses in the first round of the playoffs. Would it then feel worth it to Vikings fans to keep a third-round pick meant for Cousins—I’m trying to find a comp for this trade, with Joe Flacco having gone from the Browns to the Bengals for a fifth-to-sixth-round swap—instead of using the pick to marginally increase the ceiling of this offense? If Cousins is going to be traded, I would guess Minnesota, where he played for six seasons, would be high on his list. He doesn’t like to sit, and when you’re the league leader in touchdown passes, who can blame you? This may be best for all sides if the Raiders plan to turn to Fernando Mendoza soon anyway.

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Eagles DT Moro Ojomo to the Vikings

Sometimes teams tell on themselves so we don’t have to. The Vikings made an aggressive move for Caleb Banks in the first round of the 2026 draft because an attacking defensive tackle was a necessity to evolve Flores’s scheme to the next level. Banks has put together some really impressive tape over the past few weeks and the Vikings also have Jalen Redmond, who will make himself an awful lot of money next season. Ojomo would be a luxury move and provide tackle depth at a time of year when rotating snaps will lead to better overall reps.

Like the Eagles did in 2022 (the year they lost the Super Bowl to the Chiefs), signing both Linval Joseph and Ndamukong Suh to lessen the burden on the team’s vaunted front, Ojomo can lift up a unit that plays a majority of its snaps with two defensive tackles on the field. Ojomo has some edge versatility, with about 34% of his snaps coming at defensive end this season, but this is a move for depth and to aid in Banks’s development. The Vikings have an excellent fleet of tackles who do exactly what the scheme asks of them, but Ojomo would add a pass-rushing flavor and diversify the array of pressure looks Flores’s defense throws. It’s critical for the Vikings to add a showstopping piece as the offense continues to lag. Flores is the most studied coordinator in the league right now and without an evolution midseason, the Vikings could risk losing their biggest advantage. Ojomo is 16th in the NFL in pass-rush win rate among defensive tackles right now. 

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Commanders DT Daron Payne to the Jaguars

The Jaguars have gotten stellar play out of DeVon Hamilton this season, especially in the run game, and Payne could represent an upgrade over Arik Armstead, who leads Jacksonville’s defensive line in snaps and will turn 33 in a few weeks. 

With the DeForest Buckner trade sealed up two weeks before the deadline—the 49ers acquired their former first-round pick for a fourth-round selection—the Commanders now have a solid benchmark for the return on Payne, who is 29. Payne is currently projected to finish with a career high in pressure rate, disrupting the QB a little more than one in every 10 snaps. At his peak, Payne was a 10-plus sack interior rusher with 18 tackles for loss and 20 quarterback hits in a season. It’s unreasonable to expect Payne to showcase that kind of production but it’s difficult to imagine Jacksonville getting a better defensive tackle on the market right now.

One fascinating subplot in all of this: Liam Coen’s exit from Tampa Bay was not the warmest, especially with Tampa Bay making an extraordinary effort to keep him on as offensive coordinator for one more season. The Buccaneers have Vita Vea on a one-year extension and former first-round pick Calijah Kancey approaching his fifth-year option season. I would imagine there isn’t much of a chance that trade talks between both sides would go anywhere. And so, if the Titans’ Jeffery Simmons is untradable (and I have said multiple times he should not be dealt), it’s Payne or Grover Stewart for a Jaguars team that could use a little boost at the deadline. 

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Jaguars wide receiver Brian Thomas Jr. to the Dolphins

One of my favorite trade deadline moves, which isn’t always properly utilized in my opinion, is when a bad team gets ahead of the draft and takes advantage of a fire sale. The Dolphins have one of the worst skill-position units in the NFL, but early on in the Jeff Hafley era we’ve seen an ability to get elevated performances out of a team in poor circumstances. Maybe Thomas is not a Hafley guy and there’s an argument to be made that the Dolphins shouldn’t be taking on reclamation projects at a time when they are still figuring themselves out from a foundational level. Importing a malcontent could ruin the vibes that we saw in the locker room Sunday, when the team went delirious after helping Hafley notch his first win of the season. But … if we believe that the Dolphins will get the No. 1 pick—current ESPN projections have the team at more than a 40% likelihood—it may also be irresponsible to take a quarterback at No. 1 without a wide receiver with some track record of taking over a game. Thomas has absolutely not been that receiver over the past calendar year but was as a rookie in 2024. As Bobby Slowik is building a new offense, perhaps it can lean heavily on the concepts where Thomas has actually been successful over the years.

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