NFL Trade Deadline Preview: Buyers and Sellers

Last Updated on October 29, 2026 8:23 pm by Erwin Noguera

Tennessee traded Jeffery Simmons to Chicago today for two NFL first-round picks. That is the market setting a price, and everything between now and November 10 gets measured against it.

The deadline is Tuesday, November 10 at 4:00 PM ET, and the timing is the most underrated thing about this one. Week 9 finishes with a Monday night game on 9 November. Every club on the fence gets two more results, and then roughly eighteen hours to decide what they are.

Indianapolis already decided. They fired general manager Chris Ballard, then on 27 October sent Quenton Nelson to Seattle and DeForest Buckner back to San Francisco on the same day.

Sixteen teams are 4-3 or better. Eleven are 2-5 or worse. Five are in between, and six have a record and a point differential that point in opposite directions. Those six are where the deadline actually gets decided.

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What Has Already Happened

J.J. McCarthy also moved from Minnesota to the Giants, a deal one source ties to an injury to Jaxson Dart. We could not establish the compensation and are not going to guess at it. McCarthy started for the Giants in Week 7, going 20 of 28 for 252 yards in a 27-21 overtime win in Houston.

Three things stand out from that table.

Simmons cost two first-round picks. NFL.com graded Chicago a B and Seattle an A for Nelson. A 5-2 Bears team with a plus-37 differential paying two firsts for an interior defensive lineman is the clearest statement of intent anyone has made.

Indianapolis sold twice in one afternoon. Nelson for a third and a fifth, Buckner for a fourth. That is not a retool; it is a liquidation, and it happened after the general manager was dismissed.

And Arizona and Houston traded with each other in a way neither record justifies.Houston were 2-5 when they acquired Marvin Harrison Jr. and are 2-5 now. Arizona are 2-5 with the worst point differential in football at minus sixty-six.

The Buyers

Sixteen teams at 4-3 or better, and they are not equally serious.

The genuine buyers are the ones whose margin matches their record.San Francisco at plus fifty-eight, Minnesota at plus fifty-one, Jacksonville at plus fifty, Seattle at plus forty-three, Cincinnati at plus forty-one, Kansas City at plus forty, and Chicago at plus thirty-seven. Seven clubs. Two of them have already bought.

Minnesota are the most interesting of the seven and the least likely to need anything. They concede 12.33 points a game, the best figure in the league by nearly five points, and they score 20.83, which ranks twenty-third. An undefeated team with a bottom-ten offence is the textbook deadline buyer; one addition on that side of the ball changes their ceiling, and nothing else will.

Green Bay just lost Micah Parsons to an ACL injury. They are 4-3 with a minus-one differential. A team that has lost its best defender and is being outscored has a harder decision than its record suggests.

The Sellers

Philadelphia are the new entry and the consequential one.Two weeks ago they were not on this list. They have now lost five straight and sit at minus forty-eight, joint fourth-worst in the league alongside Tennessee and behind only Arizona, the Chargers and Miami.Jalen Hurts has been on injured reserve since 17 October after being diagnosed with deep vein thrombosis and blood clots in both lungs; the club said it expects a full recovery and has not ruled him out for the season.

We are going to be careful here.No source we read labels Philadelphia as sellers, and a club with this roster does not usually behave like one in October. But several outlets list Eagles players among the available names, and a 2-5 record with a minus-forty-eight margin and a quarterback on IR is the profile that produces a seller whether the front office planned it or not.

Tennessee has already shown everybody how it is done.Two first-round picks for Simmons, from a team that is 1-6.Calvin Ridley and Tony Pollard are both widely flagged as the next to go; Ridley is questionable with a hip for Week 8, and Pollard ran for 129 yards and three touchdowns in a losing effort last Sunday.

Arizona have the worst differential in football and have already traded a first-round receiver. James Conner is on injured reserve with a foot injury, and Carson Beck is questionable with a back injury, which is how a 2-5 season becomes a teardown.

The Chargers at 0-6 are the only team in the league without a win, with a minus-sixty-one margin, Derwin James Jr. doubtful and Denzel Perryman on IR.

The Six Teams Whose Record and Margin Disagree

This is where the deadline is decided, because these are the clubs that can honestly argue either case.

Cleveland is the sharpest version of the problem.They have the best record of any team in the NFL that is being outscored. We have called them the most overrated team in the league three weeks running while they went from 2-2 to 5-2, and the minus-thirteen says we were right about the process every time and wrong about the result every time.

A 5-2 team does not sell. A team with a minus-thirteen differential should not buy.They also have nine players listed as questionable for Sunday, six of them on defence, which is an argument for adding depth rather than subtracting it.

Tampa Bay are the mirror and the better case.They are 2-5, and all five defeats came by seven points or fewer: six, four, seven, three, and seven. They have a plus-eleven margin and just put 43 points on Carolina with 64 passing yards. This is the most misleading record in the league, and a front office that reads the margin instead of the column buys.

Dallas and the Rams are the same shape at 3-4. Dallas just won 38-21 in Philadelphia. Both are being outscored by nobody and are below .500 anyway.

Who Is Actually Available

The names most consistently flagged across the trackers we read, with our own note on each.

Jonathan Taylor (RB, Indianapolis).Ranked the single most likely star to move by one outlet and placed in the top tier by another. He is listed as active and ran eighteen times for 95 yards and a touchdown in Week 7. Indianapolis has already sold two linemen and fired their GM. He is the obvious next piece.

Brian Thomas Jr. (WR, Jacksonville). Named an obvious candidate, which is strange on its face: Jacksonville leads the AFC South by 2.5 games, has the best differential in the AFC at plus fifty, and is coming off a bye.Jakobi Meyers is questionable with a hamstring. A club in that position selling a former first-round receiver would be the deadline’s most interesting decision.

Saquon Barkley (RB, Philadelphia).Listed in the top tier of candidates by CBS Sports, with one headline linking him to Minnesota.We flag that as reported speculation rather than anything confirmed. He is questionable with a hamstring for Week 8 and carried seven times for 62 yards in the Monday night defeat: 8.9 yards per carry, in a game Philadelphia lost by seventeen.

Calvin Ridley and Tony Pollard (Tennessee). Both flagged as likely to move by multiple outlets. Tennessee averages 15.4 points a game and has already banked two firsts.

Khalil Mack (edge, Los Angeles Chargers). Named by one tracker. We could not confirm him on the Chargers’ current injury listing, which is capped, so we are attributing this to the source rather than asserting it.

Hollywood Brown (WR), Dallas Goedert (TE), Landon Dickerson (G) and Kelee Ringo (CB), all Philadelphia. Listed across trackers as available or as rentals. Brown and Goedert are both listed as active.

Garrett Wilson (WR, New York Jets) has said publicly that he hopes not to be traded. Budda Baker (S, Arizona) surfaced in one search and could not be confirmed in a second; he is listed as active.

What We Would Do

Buy if you are Minnesota.Best defence in football by five points a game, twenty-third in scoring, 6-0. One offensive addition is the highest-leverage move available to anybody.

Buy if you are Tampa Bay, and ignore your record.Five losses by seven or fewer with a positive margin is a team that is one or two pieces from a completely different season. The column is lying to them.

Sell if you are Cleveland, and we accept this is the unpopular version.5-2 is real and minus thirteen is also real, and the team with the best record among clubs being outscored has a narrow window to convert a hot start into picks. We have been wrong on this team three weeks running, which is precisely why we are stating the reasoning rather than the conclusion.

Do nothing if you are Green Bay.Losing Micah Parsons for the season at 4-3 with a minus-one differential is the worst possible moment to pay a premium, and the price Chicago just set for an interior lineman tells you what a pass rusher would cost.

And the one to watch is Jacksonville.Best differential in the conference, 2.5 games clear of the division, off a bye, and a former first-round receiver being named as available. If that trade happens, it is the most revealing thing any front office does before 10 November.

One Note on Timing

The deadline is 4:00 PM ET on Tuesday, 10 November. Week 9’s Monday night game finishes the evening before.

That is not a quirk; it is a design.Every team in the five-game middle (Las Vegas, Dallas, Atlanta, the Rams, and Carolina) gets Week 8 and Week 9 before committing. A 3-4 club that wins both is 5-4 and buying. The same club losing both is 3-6 and selling.

Which means the useful version of this article is the one we write on 9 November, and the useful version of the list above is the one that survives two more Sundays. Tennessee did not wait, and they got two first-round picks for it.

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