Dumb Trades in the NFL

In any major professional sports league, the most common trades involve a veteran who still has some gas in the tank exchanged for prospects or draft picks. The idea is a win-win deal, with a contending team securing a good player who can put them over the top, and the other team getting good, young players it can build around in the future.

In the last month, the NFL has seen two big trades that should have matched that formula, but didn't. Washington traded second- and sixth-round picks to the Dolphins for Jason Taylor, and the New York Jets traded a conditional pick — probably a third-rounder when all is said and done — for Brett Favre. Most trades like this — aging legends for draft picks — are win-win. Everyone in these trades was a loser.

The Dolphins came out the best. They gave up their best player, but if you listen to interviews with Taylor, it doesn't sound like he's very committed to a future in football. Miami got a good draft pick, and this is a team that now has a totally clean slate for a new start. The Dolphins are going to suck something awful this season, but they picked up a little help for the future, and three or four years from now, they'll be a better team for this trade. They can miss the playoffs this season with or without Taylor.

Washington's side of this is more puzzling. This trade would make perfect sense for a team that is "one player away" (as the saying goes). Unfortunately, last year's surprise playoff run notwithstanding, Washington is a lot more than one player away. And if the team were one player away, that player would be a quarterback, not a defensive lineman. Unless Jason Campbell unexpectedly turns into Sonny Jurgensen, the team isn't going anywhere this season.

Jason Taylor is still a great player, and I have little doubt that he'll make Washington better this year. Taylor probably adds a win, single-handedly, to Washington's record. The problem is that Taylor is likely to be the difference between, say, 6-10 or 7-9. Washington was not a contender before the Taylor trade, and it's not a contender now. I guess you just chalk it up to another Daniel Snyder trade, but it's silly for the team to give away a high draft pick in exchange for a player who won't help them win a championship this year, and will probably retire before next year.

If Washington's trade was a little stupid, though, the Jets are positively out of their minds. What on earth do they want Brett Favre for? I can understand why a team like the Bears or Vikings might have been interested in Brett Favre. Those are teams that could reasonably believe a good quarterback could make them serious contenders. The Jets went 4-12 last year. Inconsistent QB play was certainly part of the problem, but you don't go 4-12 without a little help from your friends.

Not to put too fine a point on this, but the Jets sort of suck, and they play in the same division as the Patriots. Now they have Favre, who is probably an upgrade over Kellen Clemens, but probably not enough to make the Jets anything more than a wild card contender. Even assuming that Favre meshes well with his new teammates and coaching staff, picks up an offense he's never played in before, and learns the playbook in less than a month — which I think are some pretty big "ifs" — what are the Jets getting? A legend who can still help a good team? Or a 38-year-old drama queen who cries if he doesn't get his way and has had two terrible seasons in the last three years?

Favre played well last year, and I voted for him for the Pro Bowl, same as everyone else. He deserved it. But the year before, he may have been the worst quarterback in the league, and in 2005, he certainly was. There are only eight quarterbacks who have started more than 40 games in the last three seasons. I've listed them below, ranked by the difference between their total passing TDs and interceptions over that time:

1] Tom Brady, +66
2] Peyton Manning, +57
3] Carson Palmer, +41
t4] Drew Brees, +34
t4] Matt Hasselbeck, +34
6] Ben Roethlisberger, +24
7] Eli Manning, +16
8] Brett Favre, +4

Since the start of the 2005 season, Favre has thrown 62 interceptions, more than any other player. Eli Manning has 55, and no one else has more than 45. If you're into math, what that means is that in the last three seasons, Favre has thrown about 33% more interceptions than anyone else except Eli Manning, which may not be a totally fair comparison, since 2005 was Manning's first full year as a starter, and he has improved considerably since then, while Favre has gotten older. He'll turn 39 the month after next. John Elway, Dan Marino, Joe Montana, and Steve Young all retired before they turned 39. Heck, so did Favre. The problem is that he's back.

Favre's un-retirement has damaged his legacy and revealed him as a deeply self-centered player. If the sports media talked incessantly about how great I was, I'd probably think the same thing after 15 years, but Favre is being unfair to the Packers, putting Aaron Rodgers in a terrible situation, overstepping his bounds, and just generally behaving like a ... um, jerk (since this is a more-or-less family-friendly publication). Right now, I feel pretty much the same way about Brett Favre that I did about Terrell Owens three years ago.

Green Bay is a loser here because Favre's selfish un-retirement has made the team look bad — especially since Favre has missed no opportunity to bad-mouth the organization that he played with for 16 years — and has dramatically increased the pressure on Rodgers, who has handled the whole thing professionally but is now in a no-win situation — unless Green Bay wins the Super Bowl, but that's not going to happen. Seriously. No.

I don't think it's at all clear that Favre makes the Jets better this year, and even if he does, he's one player on a team that needs a lot of help. I know the Jets have been active in free agency this year. They lost a lot of close games last year (3-7 in games decided by less than a touchdown) and had a tough schedule. This year's schedule looks pretty easy. But seriously, the Jets were 4-12 last year! Two of their wins came against a 1-15 team. This is not the 1999 Rams. A 39-year-old Favre is not a 28-year-old Kurt Warner, Tony Richardson is not Marshall Faulk, and Vernon Gholston is probably not Torry Holt. Also, the Jets have to play the Patriots twice, they're in the same conference as the Colts, Chargers, and Jaguars, and it appears that — after a few down seasons — there are real teams in the NFC again.

It's difficult to believe Favre will play anywhere near a Pro Bowl level this year, and it's ludicrous to think he can play at a high level for more than two seasons. What I see in this trade is the Jets giving up a decent draft pick, inheriting a headache with a monster ego, and compromising their search for a QB of the future.

Favre and Taylor will probably improve their new teams this season, and maybe next season if they stick around. But even if those players don't retire after the 2008 or 2009 season, it's unreasonable to believe either one could continue to perform at a high level after that point. And neither team — even with their new big-name players — appears to be a serious Super Bowl contender. These trades have made a lot of headlines, but they didn't make a lot of sense.