Shaping up the NFL’s potential trade deadline commodities last week, two things became apparent when you spoke to the general managers that will be manning the phones: Nobody is all that interested in taking on someone else’s salary cap dump; and overvalued “just a name” players really don’t have a market to speak of.
We should have learned that in early October when the Dallas Cowboys tried in vain to get anything of value for linebacker Jaylon Smith. It became apparent very quickly that teams didn’t want to be responsible for the one-time Pro Bowler’s remaining salary, leaving Dallas to cut him purely for future cap maneuvering.