As much as I like this post every year, I'm not going to provide my usual detail this year and will be taking the easy way out in general. Shocking, I know. The Trade Deadline is essentially next week after TNF (3am ET), giving us most of 3 NFL weeks to decide who makes the playoffs outside of Nick, Ajay, and Alan.
But to start, and to make my life easier, I'll grade a real trade instead of providing a mock trade:
Trade 9
Esco receives RJ Harvey, Chimere Dike, and Darren Waller
Gutman receives Zach Charbonnet, Jordan Addison, and Ricky Pearsall
Despite the number of players involved here, I'm honestly not sure who the headliner is. I guess Harvey? Esco is certainly treating him like that. To be fair, I had something like this in the works for mock trades, as Esco trading Charbs/Addy/Pearsall for an Harvey was the most obvious move on the board for the whole league. I wasn't really sure what that package could get beyond Harvey, but this seems about right. Dike replaces some deep bench depth and Waller is most comfortable on the IR or in rehab, so it was basically a 1-for-3 trade. Harvey doesn't seem worth that on his own, but I think both teams made the most of what they could, and if both teams are at full strength, none of these guys probably starts (other than maybe Waller!).
Grades:
Esco: B-
Gutman: B
With a week to go, we damn sure better hit double digit trades. The league is pretty wide open, and some of the sleeping giants (Esco, Levine, Billy) are set to make moves to challenge or replace the early-season pretenders (Gutman, Weissbard, Zacherman).
Mock Trade 1
Nick receives Marcus Mariota, Troy Franklin, and Tyler Warren
Zacherman receives Matt Stafford, Stefon Diggs, and Dallas Goedert
Mock Trade 2
Ajay receives Chris Olave
Bennett receives D'Andre Swift
Mock Trade 3
Alan receives Josh Jacobs, Emanuel Wilson, and A.J. Brown
Levine receives Breece Hall, Devin Singletary, and Justin Jefferson
Mock Trade 4
AGD receives Alvin Kamara and Quentin Johnston
Billy receives George Kittle
Mock Trade 5
Barnard receives Caleb Williams, Jacory Croskey-Merritt, and Rome Odunze
Weissbard receives Lamar Jackson and Xavier Worthy
Mock Trade 6
Kumpf receives Brian Thomas Jr. and Trey McBride
Marco receives Emeka Egbuka and Travis Kelce
Most of these aren't as fun as usual, but a couple of them (2 and 4) seem like win-wins to me. Let's start trading!
