Evaluating moves at the NFL trade deadline
When I was thirteen years old, playing Strat-O-Matic, a baseball card game, with my two best friends, Danny Reynolds and Michael Sannino, we would always pause the action for trade talks. We played this silly game from 8 a.m. until 1 or 2 in the morning, taking a few breaks to hit the beach, especially if we heard Linda Bosbeshell (our version of Wendy Peffercorn from Sandlot) was wearing her bikini.
Sitting around my mother’s kitchen table, we would try to make a trade that could win the day, as each day counted as a season. Because we put a time limit on the trade talks, the action could move quickly, depending on the desperation and status of our teams. Other times, it didn’t move, as each of us liked our current roster or felt the value wasn’t good. The thought process we used as teenagers is the same one that occurred yesterday during the final day NFL teams could make trades. Some teams got great value, some teams removed players who didn’t matter, and most teams hung up the phone as the offers were ridiculous.
Philadelphia wanted to be buyers in the market if they could win the trade—which is smart. Most teams wanting to make a move would only say yes if they won the trade, which is why, for all the hype, there was little action. The Eagles are aggressive when it comes to trades, but they behave with a safety margin, always asking can this decision absorb the double worse case scenario? When you build your trade decisions with a safety margin, you are in a position of strength. When you don’t, you make a dumb move, like the Bears.
Since we are a betting network, we only care about which team increased their chances of winning games and putting money in our pockets. By trading for Montez Sweat, did the Bears increase their odds of winning? You know the answer to that question. Keep fading the Bears as Sweat won’t make a difference toward winning or the spread. He couldn’t do it in Washington. Why would that change in Chicago?