We’re less than two weeks away from the NFL trade deadline on November 4, and trade speculation is heating up across the league. This time of year, so much swings on one game and teams are calculating the moves they want to make while they still can.
We still have two more weeks of games to get through before that fateful Tuesday afternoon, so a lot can still change between now and then. A surprise pair of losses — or wins — can dramatically affect a team’s plans to be buyers or sellers at the deadline, or even which players are available. That’s not to mention injuries creating new needs on teams that thought they were set.
But in the meantime, let’s take a look at five more plausible trade proposals ahead of the trade deadline:
49ers Make Their Move At Pass Rusher
The 49ers might be the team most openly scouring the trade market for help on defense right now, particularly at pass rusher. They might add a linebacker as well with All-Pro LB Fred Warner out for the year with a broken ankle, but their focus is at edge defender after All-Pro ED Nick Bosa went down a few weeks ago with a torn ACL. Their best edge rusher aside from Bosa is Bryce Huff, but now he’s set to miss a few weeks with a hamstring injury.
Johnson is an interesting name on the trade market for a few reasons. If it weren’t for the Jets bottoming out this year, he almost certainly wouldn’t be on the market at all. A first-round pick in 2022, Johnson has developed into one of the league’s premier edge-setters in the run game and has increased his productivity as a pass rusher year over year. Despite missing three games with an injury this season, he has 16 tackles, a sack, a pass defensed, and 12 pressures on the year.
Productive young players like Johnson are usually slam-dunks to re-sign, but with the Jets so far from contention and other players who need extensions, Johnson may be the odd man out. New York could save some money in the short term by trading Johnson for draft picks to keep the roster cheaper and get more young talent in the building.
For the 49ers, they could reunite Johnson with DC Robert Salah, who was Johnson’s head coach in New York for three years. Johnson’s skillset is somewhat redundant with first-round rookie ED Mykel Williams’, but Johnson is more ready to contribute now, and San Francisco is clearly willing to go after a big fish. They were expected to pursue Bengals ED Trey Hendrickson, though it now appears Cincinnati won’t trade him.
