Plagarized from ESPN.com
The Seattle Seahawks attempted to generate some interest in defensive end Anton Palepoi. Dallas toyed with the notion of shipping defensive back Andrew Davison to the New York Jets and tried, in talks with several teams, to land a young reserve tailback. The Minnesota Vikings, for the second year in a row, shopped superfluous running back Doug Chapman around the league.
The result of all the rhetoric?
When the NFL trade deadline passed quietly on Tuesday at 4 p.m., there had been plenty of dangling but, as usual, no deals.
In fact, several personnel directors and general managers suggested that there was even less dialogue than in past seasons, as teams opted to stand pat. Even those franchises that in recent days had considered so-called "bottom of the roster" trades, designed to bolster depth for the second half of the season and the playoff stretch run, backed away.
"I don't know, from talking to people around the league, that anything got even close to being (consummated)," said Washington Redskins vice president of football operations Vinny Cerrato. "A team would call, float a name that you'd think about for 30 seconds or so, and that would be it. I mean, once the season starts, it's just not a trading league."
Recent history certainly confirms that.
This marked the sixth time in nine seasons that no "deadline day" trades were struck. In fact, since 1990, there have been only 12 deadline swaps, fewer than one per season. And since 1995, there have been only four true "deadline deals."
Last season, the Cowboys sent guard Kelvin Garmon to San Diego for a low-round draft pick, but that was on the Saturday preceding the trade deadline. The Cowboys tried, but not too hard, to improve their tailback situation before this year's deadline, but failed to come up with a trade partner.
Dallas queried San Francisco about the availability of the inconsistent Kevin Barlow and phoned the Miami Dolphins on little-used Leonard Henry but their trade overtures were rebuffed by the two teams. Rumors that the Cowboys spoke with the Cincinnati Bengals concerning star tailback Corey Dillon were unfounded.
The Cowboys did not explore the possibility of acquiring New York Giants tailback Ron Dayne, the former Heisman Trophy winner and 2000 first-round selection who has been relegated to "scout team" duty, and apparently neither did anyone else.
The characteristic dearth of deals, at least in some quarters, resurrected the debate over whether the NFL should delay the trade deadline until later in the season. The deadline is historically set for the Tuesday after the completion of the season's sixth weekend. But one member of the NFL's influential competition committee said there really has been little support for moving back the deadline.
Most personnel directors and coaches contend that a player added in October isn't likely to contribute immediately, since it will take a few weeks to assimilate the schemes of his new team, and also take the staff some time to divine a way to use him. But delaying the trade deadline would only exacerbate that perceived problem.
"You've got that element, plus the salary cap angle, and it just adds up to too big a risk for most teams to take on a guy even six weeks into the season," said one head coach. "We started to see, the last two years, a few more offseason trades. Maybe that (trend) will continue. But I never see us being like baseball, you know, with a trade deadline that comes just before the final month (of the season)."
When was the last time that there was a meaningful trade in the middle of the season?
Hell, most of the time, players leave via free agency or being cut, not through trades.
