With the NFL season over, the scouting combine a week away, and NFL free agency a few weeks away, it’s a silly season. Tune into any show on ESPN, FS1, NFL Network, or CBS Sports, and you will hear wild speculation for the most part. Tune into any sports talk radio season, and you will hear crazy NFL fantasy general managers coming up with wild scenarios.
That brings us to ESPN GET UP this week, where they have former NFL VP and General Manager Mike Tannenbaum come up with trades that he thinks would help both teams. Again, this is a TV segment to fill up time when there are no NBA games to talk about this week or NFL games to talk about this week, and in the world of sports television, MLB and the NHL do not draw ratings.
So, the networks need to contrive conversation around the NFL to get people to tune in. Hence, this segment.
Mike Tannenbaum put out a trade involving the Dolphins and the Chiefs.
Jaylen Waddle to KC and Trent McDuffie to Miami
A young superstar WR for a. young superstar CB. Seems fair, but neither team would ever agree to this deal. Let me state the reasons why.
- Kansas City just won back-to-back Super Bowls after giving away Tyreek Hill. They have proven they don’t need a true #1 WR to win
- Trent McDuffie is fantastic, and it is much more difficult to find a superstar CB than it is a superstar WR, so why would KC do that to themselves?
- The Dolphins just drafted Cam Smith last season in Rd 2. Granted, he didn’t play, but in a perfect world, he and Ramsey are your CB duo of the immediate future.
So yeah, it’s not happening.
Another reason why it won’t happen is a simple one. Miami may have two dynamic superstar wide receivers, but on the depth chart, they have nothing after that. And trading away Waddle will just make a position of need (yes, WR is a position of need, not the top need, but a need) that much more of a glaring need.
As of today, Miami has three WRs under contract. Hill, Waddle, and Erik Ezukanma and Ezukanma is coming off a major neck injury. Chase Claypool, Robby Anderson, Braxton Berrios, Cedrick Wilson Jr, and River Cracraft are free agents. Miami could sign one or two or all of them back. Will that make for a good WR room, though?
When Hill and Waddle went down, none of those guys could step up and fill the void in a meaningful way last year. The Dolphins need to do some work to add WR depth, which isn’t awful, as they have a fantastic #1 and #2 already. But if you trade Waddle away, then WR becomes the biggest need on this roster, as not only do you need depth, but you also need a quality starter ASAP.
So, while Mike Tannenbaum may think Waddle for McDuffie is a fair trade for both teams, I don’t think either team would want to make that trade.
More must-reads: