NFL Trade Deadline Winners and Losers: Lions load up while Cowboys, Jets fall flat

Exhale, everybody. After weeks of speculation and a final few hours of furious activity, the NFL trade deadline is officially in the rearview mirror. There's a lot to unpack for just about every team in the league, and we won't really know who won and who lost for weeks if not months.

What we can evaluate in the moment, however, is process — i.e., did a team correctly evaluate its needs and use its available resources as efficiently as possible to fill them? Some teams passed that test with flying colors, whether it was a contender finding the final piece to a potential Super Bowl puzzle or a team looking to kickstart its rebuild. Others, however, might look back at Tuesday afternoon and kick themselves for moves made or not made.

Which teams landed where? Let's dig in.

NFL trade deadline winners

Detroit Lions

This one is as straight-forward as can be. Detroit knew it needed to find a pass rusher to replace the injured Aidan Hutchinson, and it landed the best one available in Za'Darius Smith. Even better, GM Brad Holmes hardly broke the bank for Smith's services, sending just a fifth- and sixth-rounder to the Cleveland Browns in exchange for Smith and a seventh. This Lions team proved itself worthy of a big swing, and that's exactly what Holmes provided.

Washington Commanders

Speaking of NFC hopefuls who found ideal solutions to their biggest areas of need. The Commanders desperately needed to find a corner to pair with Mike Sainristil and chain the flailing Benjamin St. Juste to the bench. They got exactly that on Tuesday, acquiring Marshon Lattimore from the New Orleans Saints. It wasn't cheap to beat out the Kansas City Chiefs and other interested parties, but when you have an MVP-caliber quarterback on a rookie deal, your window is right now. Lattimore is a massive upgrade for Washington, one that vaults them to the top of the NFC East pecking order.

The elite QBs of the AFC

The rich got a whole lot richer here. The three best QBs in the sport all reside in the AFC, and all of them got new toys to play with ahead of the trade deadline. The Kansas City Chiefs landed DeAndre Hopkins for Patrick Mahomes. The Buffalo Bills snagged Amari Cooper for Josh Allen. And the Baltimore Ravens got Diontae Johnson for Lamar Jackson. Those are three legitimate difference-makers, none of whom cost an arm and a leg. This race for the conference title is going to be a blast to watch.

Insert disgruntled wide receiver here

Hopkins, Cooper and Johnson were just three of a dizzying number of receivers to get dealt this deadline season. The New York Jets also landed Davante Adams while shipping Mike Williams to the Pittsburgh Steelers, while the Dallas Cowboys acquired Jonathan Mingo from the Carolina Panthers (more on that last deal shortly). Maybe it's just that you can never have enough wide receiver depth in today's pass-happy NFL. Maybe sending cryptic Instagram posts is the quickest way to get a GM's attention. Whatever the reason, we saw a historic amount of action over the past few days, and names like Calvin Ridley and Chris Olave could be up next this offseason.

NFL trade deadline losers

Jerry Jones' talent evaluation

If there's one thing recent history has taught us, it's that you should never trust Jerry Jones when he's got a draft-day crush. The Panthers have been desperate for playmakers on the outside, especially with Johnson off to Baltimore. And yet Mingo has caught one pass over the last four weeks, and has yet to crack 40 yards in a game all season.

So naturally, the Dallas Cowboys coughed up a fourth-round pick for his services — more than the Chiefs paid for Hopkins, more than the Ravens paid for Johnson and nearly as much as the Bills gave up for Cooper. Even if you want to argue that Mingo has been stranded in a hopeless situation, that he's still a young player with plenty of upside worth betting on, that's a woeful misread of the market. (Who exactly did Jones think Dallas was bidding against here?)

And of course, you shouldn't argue any of the above, because Jones and his front office haven't earned nearly that sort of benefit of the doubt.

The New York metropolitan area

Tough times for New York's two football teams, neither of whom seem to have much of a roadmap moving forward. The Jets had a chance to help reset their roster after the Aaron Rodgers experiment flamed out in spectacular fashion. Instead, Joe Douglas gave up a third-round pick for Davante Adams; while a fifth-rounder was surprisingly good work for Mike Williams, this still leaves New York in limbo, stuck with a non-contending team and with less draft capital than it started with.

For the Giants, meanwhile, the story is one of complete inaction. No one is in need of a reboot more than Big Blue, but Joe Schoen chose to sit out the trade deadline entirely rather than bend even a little bit in his asking price for players like Azeez Ojulari and Darius Slayton. Ojulari and Slayton are both talented, and you don't want to sell low, but you need to sell for something when the alternative is to lose them for nothing in free agency. Instead, Schoen behaved like a GM desperate to keep his job in the short term.

Pittsburgh Steelers

The Steelers might show up on some winner lists, making two unexpected trades for Williams and Green Bay Packers edge rusher Preston Smith. But do either of those names really move the needle much, if at all? Williams couldn't find a way to make waves on a Jets team desperate for any wide receiver to step up alongside Garrett Wilson, and there's a reason the Packers were so willing to cut bait with Smith (who has just 11 pressures on the season). A fifth-rounder and a seventh-rounder aren't a ton, but they're also not nothing, and it's tough to see how Pittsburgh really moved the needle at all here.

Las Vegas Raiders

What are we doing here, exactly? Holding on to Maxx Crosby is certainly understandable, but why is a 2-7 team not at least seeing what it can get for some pending free agents? Once again, it really seems like Las Vegas has no sense of just how far away it is from meaningful contention.

New Orleans Saints fans

No team needed to rip the bandaid off more desperately than the Saints. With Lattimore off to Washington, we could just as easily have listed "2026 New Orleans Saints salary cap" in the winners section, as Mickey Loomis and Co. finally appear ready to take their financial medicine and embrace the tank. But man, that tank is going to be ugly for at least a couple of years, and we feel for the Saints fans that are going to have to get through it. It's going to get worse before it gets better, but hopefully there's some light at the end of the tunnel.