Winners and losers

1. Winner: New York Jets
2. Loser: Indianapolis Colts
3. Winner: Jacksonville Jaguars
4. Loser: Dallas Cowboys
5. Winner: New Orleans Saints
6. Winner: Rashid Shaheed

The National Football League isn’t only about wins and losses.

While the standings are king, the moves that shape them are often graded as wins and losses, both sheepishly in the moment and with more insight down the road. Those truths hold for last year’s trade deadline, one of the busier weeks we’ve had in recent history, including blockbusters for Sauce Gardner and Quinnen Williams as the Jets held a full-scale fire sale. 

The eventual champion Seahawks also worked to fortify their hopes. They did so by adding an impact receiver/returner from New Orleans in Rashid Shaheed, who helped catapult the Pacific Northwest into pandemonium with three return touchdowns, including a 95-yard kick return in Seattle’s 41–6 demolition of the 49ers in the divisional round. 

With the 2026 NFL trade deadline approaching (Nov. 10), it’s time to look back and see who did well and who didn’t. 

Winner: New York Jets

The Jets have to be thrilled. General manager Darren Mougey decided to clean house on defense and traded away former All-Pro corner Sauce Gardner and defensive tackle to the Colts and Quinnen Williams to the Cowboys, respectively. The return was massive. New York received three first-round selections, a 2026 second-rounder, defensive tackle Mazi Smith and receiver Adonai Mitchell.

So far, Mougey has turned that haul into tight end Kenyon Sadiq, with two first-round choices to come in the quarterback-rich 2027 draft. Sadiq has been promising, catching 16 passes for 164 yards and a touchdown across seven games. While Smith is now on the Dolphins, Mitchell has been a nice piece to the offense, catching nine passes for 123 yards in three games while sustaining a finger injury that sidelined him for a month.  

As for the departed, Gardner has been decent for the Colts but has also won a total of three games since being dealt there. In Williams’s case, the Cowboys ranked 30th in defense in each of the past two years. Williams has been underwhelming in Dallas so far with 3.5 sacks, nine tackles for loss and 14 quarterback hits in 13 games.

If Mougey could do those trades again, he wouldn’t hesitate to. Now, he needs to hit on what could be two very high picks from Indianapolis and Dallas next April.

Loser: Indianapolis Colts

The Colts have to be wishing they could hit the rewind button on acquiring Gardner. 

In fairness, this isn’t solely about Gardner. He’s played reasonably well, posting a 76.9 grade on Pro Football Focus last year to rank ninth among corners. This season, he’s played 91% of the defensive snaps in coordinator Lou Anarumo’s defense. The problem, though, is he’s not playing like the first-team All-Pro he was in New York, and he hasn’t recorded an interception since the trade.

Furthermore, nothing has gone right for the Colts since he showed up. Quarterback Daniel Jones tore his Achilles in December, putting the finishing touches on a season that started 7–2, ended 8–9 and out of the postseason. Early on, Indianapolis is 2–5 and doesn’t look like a contender, which could mean a house-cleaning and a new regime coming in without the benefit of last year’s first-round pick or the ability to use this year’s. 

General manager Chris Ballard took a huge swing to land Gardner, believing he was the missing piece to help the Colts contend in last season’s wide-open AFC. It didn’t work out, and now the Colts are mired in mediocrity.

Winner: Jacksonville Jaguars

Going into last year, nobody expected the Jaguars to be a contender. Coming off a 4–13 season, Jacksonville was led by first-year coach Liam Coen, who initially turned down the Jaguars’ offer before ultimately accepting. 

Coen and his staff have worked wonders for Jacksonville, which sits 4–1 and atop the AFC South as it seeks another division crown. However, Coen’s maiden voyage wasn’t smooth, and the Jaguars were searching for answers. On the morning of Nov. 4, Jacksonville sat 5–3 and in a tenuous position. Then it traded fourth- and sixth-round picks to the Raiders for veteran receiver Jakobi Meyers and everything changed. 

With Meyers, the Jaguars went 8–1 while he posted 42 catches for 483 yards and three touchdowns. Coincidentally, quarterback Trevor Lawrence got hot, throwing 20 of his 29 touchdowns over the final nine games, helping Jacksonville secure the No. 3 seed in the AFC.

Those developments helped Meyers land a three-year, $60 million extension in December. In six games this year, he’s caught 20 receptions for 285 yards and two touchdowns, providing a nice second-fiddle to emerging star Parker Washington on the perimeter.

Loser: Dallas Cowboys

Jerry Jones answers to no one, which might be the problem. 

Last season, Jones stunned the football world by trading All-Pro edge rusher Micah Parsons to the Packers for a pair of first-round picks and defensive tackle Kenny Clark. Then, months later, Jones sent a 2026 second- and a ’27 first-rounder (the better of Dallas and Green Bay’s) to the Jets for defensive tackle Quinnen Williams.

The results haven’t been there. They’re 2–4 and behind the Giants in the woeful NFC East, somehow failing to beat the previously winless Buccaneers in Week 5. Williams hasn’t been the dominant performer Dallas hoped for either, leaving the Cowboys without a critical building block moving forward while also costing $19.9 million and $24.9 million against the cap each of the next two years, respectively. 

Jones also made the curious decision to send a 2026 seventh-round pick to the Bengals for linebacker Logan Wilson, who is now retired and suited up for Dallas only seven times and didn’t log a single tackle for loss, quarterback hit, sack or interception. While it’s the latest draft pick, it’s a terrible use of resources. 

Winner: New Orleans Saints

We’re finishing with two winners, and we’re starting with the Saints. In another lost year, general manager Mickey Loomis decided to get younger and cheaper by trading veteran talent, including receiver Rashid Shaheed and tackle Trevor Penning, bringing back fourth- and fifth-round picks in 2026, and a sixth-rounder in ’27. 

So far, New Orleans looks to be doing well. We’ll dive into Shaheed more below, but he cashed in with the Seahawks while Penning has become a reserve for the Chargers. Meanwhile, Loomis used those first two selections and turned them into guard Jeremiah Wright and safety Lorenzo Styles Jr., neither of whom has made an impact yet. Obviously, both have plenty of time to become quality players, but if nothing else, the Saints gave themselves some lottery tickets in exchange for players they weren’t planning on retaining. 

If Wright, Styles or the 2027 sixth-round pick end up becoming something between serviceable and meaningful, that’s a win for New Orleans as second-year coach Kellen Moore and quarterback Tyler Shough try to get the Saints rolling for the first time since the Drew Brees era.

Winner: Rashid Shaheed

How could Shaheed himself not be on the list?

Shaheed was dealt from the going-nowhere Saints to the Seahawks, where despite not doing much on offense across nine games with 15 receptions, he made an immeasurable impact on the team with three return touchdowns. 

Shaheed then became a financial winner when general manager John Schneider decided to pay him instead of Super Bowl MVP running back Kenneth Walker III, giving him a three-year, $51 million deal including $34.7 million guaranteed. While Shaheed has gotten off to a slow start in 2026 with 16 catches for 163 yards and zero touchdowns, he now has cash for life and a championship ring to go with it. 

Whether Shaheed is worth the second contract remains to be seen, but from his standpoint, things couldn’t have worked out much better.