The annual trade deadline arrives next week, which gives teams that are on the outs an opportunity to commence the process of getting back on the ins by flipping current assets for future picks. But this year, like in plenty of other years, there’s a problem: Not enough teams are clearly on the outs.
Which means that the trade deadline, which moved from the Tuesday after Week Six to the Tuesday after Week Eight several years ago, should move even deeper into the calendar. Or, alternatively, it should go away all together.
Why does it even exist? Who is the league protecting by having an arbitrary deadline on when teams can engage in arm’s-length transactions? If one team wants to make a trade with another team, let them. And if there’s something fishy about it, for whatever reason, the teams will face the wrath of their fan base and/or the media.
The trade deadline is probably there because years ago they implemented a trade deadline and it has persisted without any real examination as to why it still exists. The NFL is much different than it was decades ago, when the league was smaller and the external scrutiny was virtually non-existent and an owner could do another owner a solid by giving him a good player for next to nothing so that the owner could beat the owner of a third team whom the owners of the other two teams hate, or something.
The NFL doesn’t operate that way anymore. It’s gigantic business, and none of them will be making deliberately bad backroom deals out of friendship or impishness or anything other than helping their team be as good as it can be, especially since EVERYONE is paying very close attention to EVERYTHING.
So get rid of the trade deadline, NFL. Or, at a minimum, give us an explanation for its ongoing existence far more persuasive than “it was like that when I got here.”