Dawg Talkers Message Boards: The Rules of NFL Trading

A few additions. The above rules state what WON'T happen in trades. Here are a couple rules that point to favorable trade situations:

RULE ONE: A trade is possible when a team has an abundance of good players in one position, AND the cap hit is minimal.

Ricky Williams/Duece McCallister and Trent Green/Kurt Warner are good examples of this. The new guy shows up and upstages the incumbent, but the incumbent is still good enough to have worth to other teams. In both of these cases, the cap hit to the teams involved was minimal, which made the trade possible.

On the Browns, many are calling for us to trade Couch with the good showing Holcomb has had so far. However, Couch's cap situation won't allow us to do that. We are actually in better position to trade Holcomb, which I'm sure many of you will groan at. (This is also a good sign of a potential trade, "Not everyone will like it.") *IF* Couch renegotiates his contract or plays a few more years to knock off some years on his signing bonus, he will become more tradable. That also depends on what Holcomb does as well.

Another possibility is Wide Receiver. KJ is constantly brought up in trade rumors, and for good reason. We have several decent Wide Receivers, and also several teams who could use one of them. KJ's contract is also not going to cause a huge cap hit, thus making him tradable. (Many people will be against this idea as well...again showing the potential for a trade.) But don't get any ideas about 1st round draft picks. WR is not as coveted a position as a RB or a QB.

RULE TWO: A trade is possible when a very good player wants out.

We don't really have anybody on our team that applies, but you will see this come up from time to time. Kyle Turley is an example on the Saints. He's a great player, but he's not happy in the Big Easy. Teams looking to trade for him must be weary of this though. Sure he plays good on the field, but how much of a distraction will he be off the field?

RULE THREE: Unproven talent MIGHT garner you a 5th round or lower pick.

This could apply to someone like Quaz Mitchell or Paul Zukaskas. They haven't really shown what they can do yet on the NFL level, and they seem to have a great deal of potential, but no one really knows yet.

Remember last year when Ben Gay was the big thing in training camp? That was the best time to trade him. As it turned out, we kept him and he fizzled out. By year-end, we couldn't trade him for a bag of Doritos.

Again, people would probably be against the idea of trading one of our up-and-comers, and again...that's a good sign that the trade is plausible.

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