Trade Deadline

This tweet from Ian Rapoport pretty much says it all:

Ian Rapoport@RapSheet
Among the people who did not get traded: All of them except Isaac Sopoaga. No Nicks, Britt, Gordon, Dixon, Fitzgerald, Me, @AlbertBreer etc.

The Philadelphia Eagles traded nose tackle Isaac Sopoaga and a 6th-round pick to the New England Patriots for a 5th-round pick. The Patriots needed a big guy in the middle after losing Vince Wilfork. This was the only trade that went down yesterday. There were rumors, as we crept toward the 4pm EST deadline, that the Minnesota Vikings were looking at possible trading defensive end Jared Allen. He's in the final year of his contract so the Vikings were supposedly looking to get something for while they could. You never know what rumors are true as a trade deadline approaches or in the wild world of free agency. I'm sure that the Vikings were listening to anyone poking around. At one point the Seattle Seahawks were trying hard to pry Allen away from the Vikings. Then, we hear that the interest isn't there. The Seahawks have been going after Vikings players for a few years now so that rumor wasn't hard to start. For weeks, there have been rumors about Cleveland Browns receiver Josh Gordon being traded. Hakeem Nicks and Kenny Britt too. Those didn't happen. When it came down to it, only Isaac Sopoaga moved to a new team. I'm sure that he's happy about that. Eagles to the Patriots. Nice move for him.

The NFL moved the trade deadline back a couple of weeks to possibly spark a trading frenzy. Roger Goodell wanted the action and attention that comes with the mid-season trade deadline in other sports. Trades happen during the season in football. Even some big trades have happened. Herschel Walker! There will never be a big trading frenzy during the season in football. It takes too long to adjust to a new player. It takes too long for the team and the player. There are too many moving parts to get in sync in football. It takes work when a team has an entire offseason to adjust. It's pretty much impossible to adjust on the fly during a season.

Despite the adjustments, I wouldn't have been too disappointed if the Vikings had swung a trade for Buffalo Bills safety Jairus Byrd.