NFL Extends Trade Deadline

Added on Aug 30, 2012 by Scott in

NFL

A decision that was approved back in May has officially been enacted for the 2012 NFL season. The trade deadline will be shifted from after Week 6 to after Week 8. In addition, teams will be allowed to remove one player from injured reserve and place him on the active roster during the regular season. Both moves should enable contenders to retool their rosters for a playoff run.

The early trade deadline has long been a bone of contention among front office personnel and fans in particular. In a league where every game is significant and injures play such a vital role, the extra two weeks might lead to a little more wheeling and dealing.

However, unlike the other three major sports, trades are much more complicated in football. Salary dumping isn’t a common practice and swapping big name players can be problematic within the constraints of the salary cap. General managers are also reluctant to give up on a guy too soon.

That said, if a Super Bowl caliber team loses a key player in the opening weeks, they are in a much better position to engineer a trade to fill the void. If nothing else, it adds some extra excitement to what was an otherwise dormant period of the regular season.

Permitting teams to pluck someone from the IR is another benefit that is long overdue. This is good news for those who have been injured in the offseason or preseason, but are ready to return to action sooner than later. It adds flexibility and just makes sense. This is one are where baseball has always been ahead of the curve, what with the 60-day disabled list.

Again, it’s unclear how much these rule changes will impact the 2012 season, but the fact that the league continues to tinker with the system to account for injuries is a positive. Now if they could only figure out a way to pay the officials.

Source: NFL.com