It sounds like some NFL teams have made progress in their quest to push back the trade deadline. According to Tom Pelissero of NFL Network, there were two recent bylaw proposals to move the trade deadline back from its current date of the Tuesday after Week 8.
[RELATED: Teams Proposing Pushing Trade Deadline From Week 8 To Week 10]
The Steelers proposed a bylaw that would see the deadline pushed back a week, which would make it the Tuesday after Week 9. The Browns, Lions, Jets, Eagles, and Commanders were looking to push it back even further, proposing the deadline fall on the Tuesday after Week 10.
The NFL moved the deadline to Week 8 back in 2012, but they didn’t make an adjustment when they added a week to their schedule in 2021. That’s led some GMs to propose pushing the deadline back and lining it up with other major sports’ trade deadlines.
While the hypothetical recently gained some traction, there were reportedly some GM and owners who questioned if the change even needed to be made. While Browns GM Andrew Berry previously expressed his belief that pushing the deadline would help improve the “competitive integrity” of the NFL, there was some fear that a deadline move could only incentivize tanking. Berry seemed to disagree with that notion, though, saying last month that a deadline change would only keep teams more competitive.
“We think as a league it makes sense to give teams the most flexibility as long as possible to have the best product down the stretch run of the playoffs,” Berry stated (h/t Spencer German of Browns Digest). “We wanted to make sure we maintained the competitive integrity of the season so you don’t get into player dumping late in the year.”
The next round of league meetings are set for March 24-27.
Waiting until week 9 or ten to make a decision on “tanking” is probably not going to get you a top 3 pick in the next draft. There would be some incentive however, to unload a high cost player who doesn’t figure to be in the next seasons plan.
I’d like to see it happen. That would give teams a better chance of making up for a mid-season devastating injury.
Needs to be the week before American Thanksgiving.
Seems obvious that the league wants to extend the season to 18 games, reduce preseason to 2 games, add another bye week so they should get ahead of it all by extending it to week 12 which would leave 6 games 1/3 of the season of an 18 game season. Teams who tank the last 6 games aren’t landing a top 5 pick who aren’t already in the running for a top 5 pick so it’s unlikely to increase tanking. Teams who are 4-8 are already in the running, 5-7 are probably in the top 8. Only teams with fewer than 3 wins could secure the top pick but they are already really bad so is it really tanking at that point?