NHL Best Bets for Tuesday (11/19)
Kenneth Le
The NFL trade deadline falls on Halloween this year, which is fitting because the dead walk amongst us. Don’t be confused if they’re still technically upright, shuffling their way listlessly through the season. Don’t be alarmed if they cause a contender or two to trip over their lifeless corpses. Don’t even be shocked if you occasionally hear, escaping from their rotting bodies, something that sounds like “we’re taking things one week at a time and this is all part of the process.” No, these teams are the dead, alright.
At the moment, the FTN DVOA playoff odds list six teams with a 2% chance or less of reaching the playoffs – the Arizona Cardinals, Carolina Panthers, Chicago Bears, Denver Broncos, New England Patriots and New York Giants. It’s not unheard of for a 1-5 team to bounce back and make the playoffs – the 2020 Washington Football Team managed that in the utterly terrible NFC East, and the 2015 Chiefs and 2018 Colts both basically ran the table to slip in as wild cards – but for these teams, the season is essentially over already, no matter what math would have you believe.
That makes them enticing fodder for the contending teams as we approach the trade deadline. While the NFL trade deadline has historically been a rather sleepy affair, we’ve seen an explosion of activity in recent years. In 2022, we saw Bradley Chubb head to Miami, Roquan Smith go to Baltimore, T.J. Hockenson head to Minnesota, Robert Quinn go to Philadelphia, and Christian McCaffrey go to San Francisco. The Rams may have cracked open the door to trade deadline shenanigans when they grabbed Von Miller in 2021, but last year saw every contending team get in on the act.
Which is fun! More trades need to happen in general. And for every contender that’s adding talent, we need a struggling team looking to shed it, in exchange for future draft picks and cap management.
Enter our six zombie teams. While some teams should be more desperate to sell than others, all six teams can reasonably justify shipping out expiring contracts and aging contributors to other teams who need the short-term boost. Let’s look at all six and figure out which players they could justifiably move on from.
Arizona Cardinals
While the Cardinals have certainly been better than anticipated, that’s mostly because the expectations for them were ‘world-class embarrassment’ rather than a run-of-the-mill bad team, which is what they are. The fun of Josh Dobbs, Emergency Superstar has dwindled as the season has gone along – while Arizona is still 12th in offensive DVOA over the entire season, that’s fallen to 21st over the last three weeks. They’ve done enough to show that hey, maybe that Jonathan Gannon hiring wasn’t the disaster it seemed like it would be before the season started. And now it’s time to auction off all the bits and bobs that won’t be useful the next time the Cardinals are actually, you know, good.
And the Cardinals have a lot of spare parts that other teams can use. Why a rebuilding team is paying a 33-year-old Zach Ertz is beyond me, as is why he’s still under contract for 2024. Arizona could eat most of his salary, trade him away for a Day 3 pick to a team that could use some veteran insurance at tight end, and open up more room for Trey McBride. McBride had a season-high 44 snaps last week against the Rams, so the Cardinals seem like they want to feature him more; moving on from Ertz facilitates that. There’s also Marquise Brown; his contract is up after this season, and the Cardinals could find a team (Kansas City) which has had some issues at wide receiver (Kansas City), and could use someone with a better drop rate than any target they currently have (Kansas City) and maybe even had a couple of extra mid-round picks they could stand to part with to make a Super Bowl push (Kansas City). I’m not sure any team like that exists, but Arizona could look!
The biggest asset the Cardinals have to move on from, though, is Budda Baker. Rumors of moving Baker swirled before the season started, because he’s already 27 years old, costs $18.5 million against the cap in 2024, and the Cardinals were supposed to be an active trash fire. He requested a trade this offseason but was appeased with a pay raise. That doesn’t take him off the market, however, and there are some safety-needy teams that could use the five-time Pro Bowler as he comes off the injured reserve list this week. Rather than toil on a four-win team, Baker could help the Philadelphia Eagles cover for the losses in their paper-thin secondary. Philadelphia currently has one healthy safety in Terrell Edmunds, and Edmunds hasn’t exactly been lighting the world up this year. Sending, say, a second-round pick to Arizona for Baker wouldn’t just help them through this injury window, but it would also be an upgrade across from Reed Blankenship when Blankenship is healthy, and allow Sydney Brown to move into the slot when he’s healthy. Gannon can do his old team a solid with a deal here.
Carolina Panthers
The problem with finding a trade for Carolina is that they funneled nearly all their value into Bryce Young. They don’t have a first-round pick in 2024 (or, for that matter, a second-round pick in 2025), and don’t have a top receiver for Young to work with because they had to send DJ Moore out of town to get the deal done. There’s not a lot of surplus talent just lying around in Carolina that other teams might want, which is what happens when you start the season 0-6.
There are three notable Panthers defensive starters who do not have contracts for 2024, and while Carolina isn’t exactly hurting for salary cap space, that’s where I would start to look if I was going to move on from players. The oldest of the trio is linebacker Frankie Luvu, so maybe that’s the sensible play. Luvu led the league in run tackles for a loss in 2022, was eighth in the league with 31 defeats, and has been playing quite well this season as a run defender and occasional pass-rusher for Ejiro Evero. You don’t focus a rebuild around 27-year-old off-ball linebackers, after all. Then again, Luvu is seeing the field far more often than Jeremy Chinn, as he’s not an ideal fit for the new defense. Trading away Chinn would likely hurt Carolina less in the long run; consider him an option for Philadelphia’s secondary problems as well.
But obviously the prize the Panthers are holding on to is Brian Burns. The Panthers reportedly turned down multiple first-round picks from the Rams last season for Burns because the Panthers (rightfully!) decided that it was harder to find 25-year-old superstar edge rushers than it would be to replace a running back like Christian McCaffrey or, say, a top receiver like Moore. That’s correct! And it’s a great idea, on paper. But the lack of a top receiving option is hurting Young’s development right now; Carolina is just 29th in passing DVOA and Young has the third-worst individual passing DVOA at -24.9%. All the pass rush in the world will not help if your potential franchise quarterback fizzles, and the lack of a top receiving option or a pick that could turn into a top receiving option is going to hurt Young. There isn’t going to be a multiple first-round offer for Burns this year with his contract expiring, but getting a premium pick from a team in exchange for half a year of Burns’ services and the ability to franchise tag him this offseason is well within the cards.
Jim Costa, on Detroit radio, suggested that the Lions flip their first-round pick and Jameson Williams to Carolina for Burns. I’m not in love with Williams as a player, but Williams and Young played together at Alabama and had great chemistry. I’m not in love with this specific trade – Williams is still getting part-time reps in Detroit behind the likes of Kalif Raymond and had a -54.7% DVOA in limited action last season – but something of a similar structure should at least get Carolina’s attention, as painful as it would be to move on from Burns.
Chicago Bears
Yes, yes, get all your “trade Justin Fields and draft Caleb Williams!” energy out of your system here. I’ll wait. It’s a fun idea to speculate about, but that’s a bold move for April, not October. Plus, with two first-round picks already in their pocket, the Bears have less of a need than any of the other teams on this list to make a move; they have future assets ready to go already. But, for the sake of argument, who could they move?
DJ Moore is the Bears best asset that wouldn’t hurt their future cap to move on from, but it takes a really poorly run organization indeed to trade away a young top wideout when they’re working with a developing quarterback, be that Fields, Williams, or anyone else. Instead, the Bears have been rumored to be more sensibly moving on from some of their defensive pieces. There’s a lot of smoke around Jaylon Johnson at the moment, as his rookie deal expires at the end of the year and the Bears have drafted a bunch of cornerbacks in the last two drafts. The Bears couldn’t work out a long-term deal with him before the season started, so getting some value now rather than losing him for nothing would make sense. But with the cap room they have available, I’d rather see Chicago work out a deal with Johnson and instead trade Eddie Jackson.
There’s no point in the Bears trading someone just to make a move, and that’s what trading away a young starting corner would be. Jackson, on the other hand, turns 30 this season and costs $18 million against the cap next year. By the time the Bears are competitive again, Jackson should be aging out of viability as a starter. The Bears could convert a bunch of his salary to signing bonus and find him a new home in a secondary that could use his veteran leadership and playmaking skills right now.
Denver Broncos
The Broncos need to make moves not because they need draft picks, but because they’d like to legally field a team next year. They’re $10 million over the cap already in 2024, and being both bad and broke is a bad place to find yourself in. Almost anyone who can get a draft pick of any type should probably go, as the franchise melts itself down to the foundations and begins a particularly painful rebuild. Randy Gregory’s departure should be the first of many.
That doesn’t include players like Patrick Surtain, who is both young and very good, but a number of the players the Broncos added or re-signed when they thought they would be the next hot contender after trading for Russell Wilson could and should get shipped out, if buyers can be found. Tired of doing nothing but losing, Garrett Bolles? The Cleveland Browns could use a new tackle, and for once, going to Cleveland might help someone avoid depression. Kareem Jackson may be roughly ten million years old, but he’s still one of the five best cover safeties in football; he’d be a major asset in Jacksonville. Justin Simmons can be the fourth safety in this article alone the Eagles should go grab. Throw everyone overboard, get those day two and day three picks, and start rebuilding.
The most noise, of course, has come around the receivers, with both Jerry Jeudy and Courtland Sutton reportedly available. Between the two of them, I think I would actually prefer Sutton. Sutton has a much better receiving DVOA this season (6.1% to -20.1%), and that was the case in 2020 and 2021 as well; it’s only 2022 where Jeudy had a better year. Sutton’s not a superstar, No. 1 receiver type, but he’s developed into a consistent reliable second wideout. That’s useful! Jeudy, on the other hand, hasn’t really done more than flash all-world route running chops; he simply has not been consistent enough. That’s someone I maybe take a chance on in the offseason to see if a change in scenery helps. If I’m a contender right now, though, I’ll take Sutton’s higher level of production and lower level of offseason noise and baggage, thank you much.
New England Patriots
The problem with a Patriots rebuild has been the assumed ability for Bill Belichick to keep them competitive, come hell or high water. In the midst of a rare bottoming-out season, taking this opportunity to hit the reset button in as many places as possible makes an excessive amount of sense.
We could go for a thousand words on all the directions the Patriots could go in. Do you move on from 31-year-old David Andrews, and let fourth-round pick Jake Andrews take over? Which of the major contributors from the 2020 draft class – Kyle Dugger, Josh Uche, and Mike Onewnu – are worth keeping, with all their contracts expiring at the end of the year? Could they get someone to bite on Ezekiel Elliott and his 10.3% rushing DVOA? What about Rhamondre Stevenson, who has taken a bit of a step back this year but might have more value in an offense that isn’t falling apart at the seams? Plenty of options for the Patriots to explore, and they should choose some, if potentially not all of them.
One thing that absolutely should be done, however, is move a tight end. Both Hunter Henry and Mike Gesicki’s contracts expire after this season. Both of them have a positive receiving DVOA at the moment. Yes, removing Henry probably leaves the Patriots’ offense non-functional but, well, that’s kind of the idea if we’re embracing a pseudo-tank. Henry is the better pick for a team that actually wants a tight end; he’s historically been very good in the red zone and is a solid blocker. Plus he’s 10th among tight ends in receiving DVOA in the 30th-ranked passing DVOA offense, so imagining him in a better situation is tempting.
New York Giants
Do you think they could trick someone else into trading for Saquon Barkley? One of the issues with signing a running back to a big franchise tag deal is the possibility they’ll get hurt and, well, Barkley’s already missed half the season with ankle issues. Even when healthy, Barkley has a -17.2% rushing DVOA, -20 rushing DYAR, is averaging less than four yards per attempt and has a success rate under 40%. There has been (massively unsubstantiated) rumors of the Ravens and Bills potentially kicking the tires on Barkley, and if anyone actually makes the call to Joe Schoen and makes the offer, he should immediately say yes and run away before they can change their minds.
Back in the world of reality, the Giants aren’t using Sterling Shepard – he has just 52 offensive snaps all season, including one against Buffalo. It’s not like the receivers ahead of him are lighting up the scoreboard or anything, either. He’s healthy and ready to go, but the rumored packages for him have not materialized. Well, if they’re not going to use him, they may be able to find someone else who will take him, even thought Shepard has said he wants to retire a Giant. Presumably he meant after this season, and not while sitting on a bench in October.
But no, the more valuable asset the Giants might be able to move is Xavier McKinney. Yes, yet another safety; the doomed teams seem to be full of them this season. McKinney is not under contract for 2024, and is a lot cheaper than, say, Budda Baker or Eddie Jackson. If a safety-needy team is looking for a one-year rental, McKinney is the easiest to make fit under tight salary caps and narrow future plans.
