One year later, regrading the 10 biggest deals from the 2025 NFL trade deadline

From the Colts’ disastrous gamble on Sauce Gardner to the Eagles’ productive Jaelan Phillips rental, here is how last year’s biggest deals have aged

With the 2026 deadline approaching, we revisit 10 major trades from last season and assess what worked, what failed and what teams can learn. The 2026 NFL trade deadline has a tough act to follow. Last year saw 27 players traded in-season, which was the most in a single year in a quarter of a century. This is shaping up to be an active push to Nov. 10, but will it rival the mayhem of 2025? That remains to be determined. It is the quality of the transactions that matters more than the volume. Last year can be both a blueprint for how to pull off beneficial midseason moves and for what to avoid, because the high number of trades included multiple examples of both good deals and bad.

No deal withstood the test of time worse than the Sauce Gardner trade. It has since been panned as one of the most one-sided transactions in recent NFL history and should be a reminder that just because a player carries All-Pro bona fides, he might not be worth mortgaging the future to acquire. The most beneficial trades are often the ones made on the margins, where teams secure mid- or late-round draft capital for players on expiring contracts. These tend to be mutually beneficial, as one team lands an instant-impact rental