The NFL trade deadline has passed and while the excitement of which teams are buyers, sellers and content is over, a whole new wave of emotions come into play. The anxiety of knowing if your team made the right move with their trade deadline moves and if the new arrivals will live up to the hype that brought them to their new team.
There’s quite a few players, but the Dallas Cowboys will always be in the spotlight of making their trades worth it. After all, they traded Micah Parsons only to field the worst defense in the NFL. Jerry Jones had to make a move, but is it too little too late? The Indianapolis Colts became surprise contenders and turned to Sauce Gardner to improve their secondary.
Here’s four trade deadline players that will turn the pressure up as they need to be immediate impacts and find a role quickly on their new team.
Jaelan Phillips, Philadelphia Eagles
The Philadelphia Eagles have been desperate for help on their defensive line; so desperate that they pulled Brandon Graham out of retirement to patch together their Super Bowl worthy defense again. Their latest move was trading for Jaelan Phillips with the Miami Dolphins to get some pressure off the edge. It was a great move for Philadelphia and one that can’t fold.
Between Za’Darius Smith abruptly retiring and then losing Josh Sweat this past offseason, the Eagles couldn’t afford to not improve their defensive line. This season, Phillips has three sacks and 15 tackles. He was a big name to watch as the Dolphins were potentially going to be big sellers, though they decided to just move Phillips.
The Eagles have a bottom-half of the league defense, ranking 19th in points and 23rd in yards, per Pro Football Reference. Their EDGE rushers have contributed just 4.5 of the team's 16 sacks. Last year, their top two sack leaders combined for 14.5 sacks and were both EDGE rushers. Phillips will have some massive shoes to fill with Sweat, the team's sack leader last year, in Arizona now.
Quinnen Williams, Dallas Cowboys
The Cowboys were wise to improve their defensive line, but I’m not quite sure that improving the interior was the best move. They added Quinnen Williams after adding Kenny Clark in the Parsons deal and you have to think they felt inclined to find any way to improve their run defense. They still need to improve their pressure off the edge, but anchoring their defensive interior was wise.
Jones alluded to the fact that they needed to make some big moves and you have to give him credit for doing that, it might just be too little, too late for this season. The Cowboys have the No. 31 ranked defense and No. 23 ranked run defense. Adding Williams was a big move for Dallas, but it’s more a move in stages rather than feeling like they have some resolve from the Parsons move.
Williams is a big name and an expensive one at that. Wearing the star means there’s always pressure to perform at a high level. Thanks to the Cowboys needing a lot of help on the defensive line, his role for the second half of the season will be even more important.
Logan Wilson, Dallas Cowboys
This was another one of Jerry Jones’ grand moves to help this defense out. Turning to Logan Wilson in the linebacker room was brilliant and should help improve this pass defense. While their pass defense is much better than their run defense, they definitely needed Wilson to add depth to their interior linebacker core.
Wilson isn’t having a particularly strong season like he had during the Cincinnati Bengals’ playoff runs from 2021-23. He amassed nine interceptions during that stretch with 17 passes defended. The Cowboys need this version of Wilson if they want to have that fearless defense that Dan Quinn led.
Again, these moves were less about this season and more about next season. This season for both Wilson and Williams is about getting acclimated with the new team and learning the system so next year, they can truly show how impactful they can be.
Sauce Gardner, Indianapolis Colts
The Colts definitely overpaid for Sauce Gardner, which only adds to why he has to play like he did in his rookie season. Back in the 2022 season, Gardner defended 20 passes while snagging two interceptions. It’s the most he’s had in a single season and has just one interception in the three years since.
I don’t want to say he’s a bust, but he has a lot to prove on his new team, especially because the one thing they need is a lockdown corner. The Colts have 10 interceptions this season and their corners are responsible for four of those and only Mekhi Blackmon has multiple interceptions.
The biggest issue with the Colts passing defense is they give up a lot of yards. While you could point to a lack of pressure off the edge, the fact that they turned to improve their secondary means they expect better plays down the field. The pass defense has to improve with Gardner, otherwise they gave up a whole lot for no reason.
Granted the Colts won’t necessarily need the draft capital as they’re looking to turn this miraculous season into a trend. But spending high on a corner is always risky. Gardner isn’t a bad one to take a gamble on, he just doesn’t have a lot of margin of error. Hopefully being on a new team will bring out the lockdown side of him that got him drafted fourth overall.