It seemed like we might be headed toward an anti-climactic trade deadline Tuesday in the NFL ... until the Indianapolis Colts flipped the league on its head, sending two first-round picks and wide receiver AD Mitchell to the New York Jets in exchange for All-Pro corner Sauce Gardner. In the days leading up to the deadline, no one even knew Gardner was available; he'd just signed a contract extension with Gang Green over the summer, after all, and felt tailor-made for Aaron Glenn's defense. Now, though, he's moving on to the best team in the AFC.
Things can change that quickly in this league, which is no stranger to stunning midseason deals. But just where does the Gardner blockbuster rank among the most shocking moves in NFL trade deadline history? Maybe not quite as high as you might assume.
The most shocking trades in NFL trade deadline history
Honorable mentions
If we wanted to list every jaw-dropping midseason trade in league history, we'd be here all day. We had a tough time narrowing this list down, though, so we'll sneak in a few before we get going. In no particular order:
- Jalen Ramsey to the Rams in 2019 wasn't shocking because it happened, but how it happened. After extension talks with the Jags broke down, Ramsey demanded a trade. And when that trade failed to materialize quickly enough, he went ahead and packed it in, feigning a back injury that suddenly cleared up the minute he was sent to Los Angeles. Jacksonville did get two firsts and a fourth for their troubles, a massive haul, but the Rams got a Super Bowl title a couple years later.
- It can be hard to remember now, but San Francisco's decision to sell the farm for star Panthers running back Christian McCaffrey back in 2022 was deeply polarizing at the time, sending a whopping four picks to Carolina for a player with injury issues at a volatile position. Safe to say it worked out, though, as McCaffrey made his first Pro Bowl that year and has been instrumental in two NFC titles since.
- The Chargers' fire sale in 1981 was so abrupt and absolute, we couldn't narrow it down to just one trade. San Diego had won two straight division titles under Dan Fouts and the Air Coryell offense, but that still wasn't enough to convince owner Gene Klein to pony up and keep the core together. First, in mid-September, the Chargers sent star wideout John Jefferson
— the NFL's leader in receiving yards in 1980 — to the Packers, just a day after Jefferson claimed he couldn't play for San Diego amid a contract dispute. Then, just two weeks later, another contract dispute led to the departure of future Hall of Fame defensive end Fred Dean, who'd go on to win two titles with the 49ers.
5. CB Mike Haynes to the Patriots (1983)
A trade so shocking that it went all the way to federal court. Haynes was arguably the best corner in the game in 1983, but he was holding out from the Patriots in an effort to become the highest paid player at his position. With talks going nowhere, New England decided they'd had enough, agreeing to a deal to send him to the Raiders ... less than an hour after the trade deadline had already passed.
After the NFL voided the trade, Haynes successfully sued the league, landing in L.A. in time to play the final five games of the regular season and the entirety of the Raiders' run to a Super Bowl title. He and Lester Hayes went on to become one of the most dynamic CB tandems in NFL history, and Haynes was inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame in 1997.
4. CB Sauce Gardner to the Colts (2025)
By all accounts, the Jets had no interest in shopping Gardner, who had just signed a four-year extension and seemed like an ideal building block to help get the Aaron Glenn era off the ground. And then the Colts simply made New York an offer it couldn't refuse: not just two first-round picks, but 2024 second-round receiver AD Mitchell as well.
This was a stunner both because of the player involved and because of the price tag. Absolutely no one had Gardner on their deadline radar, and spending this much on a cornerback — in the middle of a season, no less — is virtually unheard of.
3. Bobby Layne to the Steelers (1958)
Avert your eyes, Lions fans. Layne was a franchise legend in Detroit, leading the team to NFL titles in 1952 and 1953. But a broken leg late in the 1957 season allowed backup Tobin Rote to lead the Lions to a title, and suddenly, Detroit brass started wondering whether Layne was expendable after all.
So, after the second game of the 1958 campaign, they sent him to Pittsburgh in a move that took the entire city by surprise. Layne never did get the Steelers over the hump, failing to return to the playoffs despite two Pro Bowl seasons. But this deal had a lasting impact anyway: As legend has it, Layne responded to the trade by promising that the Lions wouldn't win again for 50 years, and while the story may be apocryphal, well, it's been over seven decades since Detroit's last title.
2. Eric Dickerson to the Colts (1987)
As shocking as the Gardner trade was, it's not even the most momentous trade in Colts history. That honor has to belong to star running back Eric Dickerson, who led the NFL in rushing three times over his first four years in the NFL with the Rams. But when it came time for a new contract, the relationship between player and team broke down, leading to one of the biggest trades the league has ever seen.
A whopping 10 players and three teams were involved, with three first-round picks and three-second round picks headed to the Rams while Dickerson went to Indy. We'd seen star players get moved rather than get paid, but someone of Dickerson's caliber involved in a trade of this magnitude was darn near unprecedented. The future Hall of Famer played five seasons with the Colts, rushing for 1,000 yards three times and leading the NFL in rushing in 1988.
1. Herschel Walker to the Vikings (1989)
At the time, everyone thought it was a win for Minnesota. Walker was the only salvageable thing about the Dallas Cowboys in the late 1980s, and the idea that Jerry Jones would move on from him just months after assuming ownership of the team felt disastrous.
In hindsight, though, it was a stroke of genius, one that propelled Dallas to an early '90s dynasty. It's hard to wrap your mind around the scale of it, even now: The Cowboys sent Walker, a third- and a 10th-round pick in 1990, plus a third-round pick in 1991, to the Vikings in exchange for five players (linebackers Jesse Solomon and David Howard, cornerback Issiac Holt, defensive end Alex Stewart and running back Darrin Nelson, who was fliipped to the Chargers for a fifth-round pick) and a staggering eight picks — first, second and sixth rounders in 1990, first and second rounders in 1991 and first, second and third rounders in 1992.
You probably know what happened next. Walker never cracked the 1,000-yard mark in Minnesota, which is still waiting on its first Super Bowl title. The Cowboys, meanwhile, used those picks to draft drafting players like Emmitt Smith, Darren Woodson, Russell Maryland, Clayton Holmes and Kevin Smith, rolling to three championships in four years.