NFL Nation reporters pick the greatest trade in franchise history for all 32 teams:

Editor’s note: This story was published in November 2016, ahead of the NFL trade deadline. With the NBA trade deadline looming (3 p.m. ET Thursday), we’re reposting the story.

AFC East | AFC North| AFC South | AFC West
NFC East | NFC North | NFC South | NFC West

AFC EAST

Bills trade for first-round pick, select quarterback Jim Kelly.

You probably haven’t heard of linebacker Tom Cousineau, the first overall pick in 1979 who spurned Buffalo to play in the CFL. But in 1982, the Bills traded Cousineau to the Browns for three draft picks, including the No. 14 overall selection in 1983, which was used to draft Kelly. You might have heard of him; he’s in the Hall of Fame after leading the Bills to four consecutive Super Bowl appearances in the early 1990s. — Mike Rodak

Dolphins trade for wide receiver Paul Warfield.

In 1970, Miami made a rare acquisition of a Hall of Famer in his prime by trading its third overall pick to the Browns for Warfield. It seemed like a fair trade at the time, but the Browns wasted the pick on quarterback bust Mike Phipps. Warfield, meanwhile, played five effective seasons for the Dolphins, recording 33 touchdowns and winning two Super Bowls. — James Walker

Patriots trade for wide receiver Randy Moss.

When the Patriots acquired Moss from the Raiders for a fourth-round draft choice in 2007, some wondered if Moss would be a fit in the Patriots’ hard-driving culture. For that particular year, it was a perfect fit, and he totaled an NFL single-season record 23 touchdown catches in the Patriots’ undefeated season. At the time of the trade, Moss’ value had been lessened with declining production in a losing environment in Oakland, but he came to life in New England. — Mike Reiss

Jets trade up in draft to pick quarterback Joe Namath.

The Jets traded up in the 1965 AFL draft and used the No. 1 overall pick on Namath, still the best player in franchise history. They dealt the rights to quarterback Jerry Rhome as part of a trade package with the Oilers. The Jets outbid the rival NFL for Namath, and the rest is history. He went on to a Hall of Fame career, leading the Jets to their only Super Bowl title. — Rich Cimini

AFC NORTH

Ravens trade for wide receiver Anquan Boldin.

Baltimore found a clutch receiver who helped it win a Super Bowl title when it traded for Anquan Boldin in March 2010, sending third- and fourth-round picks to Arizona for Boldin and a fifth-rounder. In the 2012 playoffs, Boldin totaled 22 catches for 380 yards and four touchdowns, averaging 17.3 yards per reception and setting team postseason records for catches and receiving yards. The Ravens then made a huge mistake by trading Boldin to the 49ers a month after he helped them win the franchise’s second Lombardi Trophy. So, Boldin was involved in the best trade and the worst trade in Ravens history. — Jamison Hensley

Bengals trade for running back James Brooks.

The Bengals and Chargers swapped disgruntled running backs in 1984, with San Diego receiving 30-year-old Pete Johnson and Cincinnati receiving 26-year-old Brooks. The Bengals got the better end of the deal. Brooks spent eight seasons in Cincinnati, eventually finishing second on the franchise’s list of rushing yards leaders and making four Pro Bowl appearances while with the team. Johnson lasted only three games in San Diego. — Katherine Terrell

Browns trade for first pick in supplemental draft to pick quarterback Bernie Kosar.

When Kosar left the University of Miami in 1985, he wanted to be a Brown. But the Browns could not get a pick high enough in the draft to get him. In a shrewd move, Ernie Accorsi traded three draft picks to Buffalo for the first pick in the supplemental draft, and Kosar delayed his application to the league so he was eligible only for the supplemental draft. Kosar became a Brown and led the team to an era of great success. He remains one of the most beloved players in team history. — Pat McManamon

Steelers trade for running back Jerome Bettis.

Talk about added roster value. The Steelers pulled off a banner draft-day trade in 1996 by acquiring a barreling running back named Jerome Bettis. They sent second- and fourth-round picks to the Rams in exchange for a third-rounder and Bettis, who rewarded Pittsburgh’s faith with six straight 1,000-yard seasons on his way to the Hall of Fame. In his last two seasons in Pittsburgh, Bettis rushed for 22 touchdowns and won a Super Bowl. The Steelers don’t swing trades very often, but this move was brilliant. — Jeremy Fowler

AFC SOUTH

Texans trade for quarterback Matt Schaub.

By trading for Schaub in 2007, Houston basically conceded that David Carr, a former No. 1 pick who was then a five-year veteran, was no longer their franchise quarterback. Schaub became the most successful quarterback in franchise history, leading Houston to consecutive playoff berths in 2011-12, including the first in team history. — Sarah Barshop

Colts trade for running back Eric Dickerson.

The Colts sent two players and six draft picks to acquire Dickerson from the Rams in 1987. Dickerson rushed for 3,981 yards and 26 touchdowns in his first 40 games with Indianapolis. The Colts sent rookie linebacker Cornelius Bennett to Buffalo to acquire a player and three draft picks that ended up being part of the package to land Dickerson. — Mike Wells

Jaguars trade for first-round pick, select running back Fred Taylor.

In 1998, the Jaguars traded backup quarterback Rob Johnson to Buffalo for the Bills’ first-round pick (ninth overall) and a fourth-round pick. With the No. 9 pick, the Jaguars took Taylor, who went on to become the franchise’s all-time leading rusher. He had seven 1,000-yard seasons in Jacksonville, including what was then a franchise-record 1,572 yards in 2003. Johnson was 9-17 in 26 starts with the Bills over four seasons. — Mike DiRocco

Oilers trade for No. 1 pick, select running back Earl Campbell.

For the Titans, it has to be dealing the No. 1 overall pick this year to the Rams along with the Nos. 113 and 177 picks for the Nos. 15, 43 and 76 picks as well as Los Angeles’ 2017 first-round and third-round picks. (The third rounder will be the Rams’ compensatory pick if they get one as expected). For the franchise, it’s the Houston Oilers’ deal for the No. 1 pick in 1978 that was used on Campbell, who went on to have a Hall of Fame career. The Oilers dealt their first-rounder to Tampa Bay (17th overall, used on Doug Williams) as well as a second-round pick (44th), third- and fifth-rounders in 1979 and tight end Jimmie Giles. — Paul Kuharsky

AFC WEST

Broncos trade for No. 1 pick, select quarterback John Elway.

It’s not often a franchise gets Hall of Fame-worthy players in trades, but the Broncos have done it twice. There is 2004, when Mike Shanahan shipped running back Clinton Portis to the Redskins for cornerback Champ Bailey and a second-round pick. Bailey played a decade for the Broncos in what is a Canton-worthy résumé. But the franchise’s best trade will always be when it sent quarterback Mark Herrmann, tackle Chris Hinton and a first-round pick in the 1984 draft to the Colts for the draft rights to Elway. Folks know the rest of the story: Elway became a Hall of Fame player and sports icon who then returned to run the team and help lead it to another Super Bowl win. — Jeff Legwold

Chiefs trade for offensive tackle Willie Roaf.

The 2002 trade with the Saints, for a third-round pick, was the move that allowed the Chiefs to build a premier offensive line and the high-scoring offense they had when they were coached by Dick Vermeil. Roaf played for the Chiefs for the final four seasons of his Hall of Fame career, and he was consistently great. It’s no coincidence the Chiefs declined sharply on offense the year after his retirement. — Adam Teicher

Raiders trade for linebacker Ted Hendricks.

Oakland got Hendricks from the Packers following the 1974 season for two first-round picks, and a year after the deal they finally broke through to win a Super Bowl. His arrival had a far-reaching impact on the franchise, however. In fact, “Kick ’em in the head Ted” freelancing along the line as an unblockable presence set the stage for Oakland winning three Lombardi Trophies in his nine seasons with the Raiders. “Ted was one of the greatest players of all time,” Raiders owner Mark Davis told me. “He dominated.” All the way to the Pro Football Hall of Fame and to the tune of four Pro Bowls, two All-Pro selections and being one of just six Raiders to play on all three title teams. — Paul Gutierrez

Chargers trade for wide receiver Charlie Joiner.

San Diego sent defensive end Coy Bacon to Cincinnati in exchange for Joiner in 1976, and Joiner spent his final 11 seasons in the NFL as a signature piece of coach Don Coryell’s air attack. Joiner finished his career in 1986 as the franchise receptions leader with 586, a mark he held until Antonio Gates broke the record in 2011. Joiner earned three Pro Bowl invitations during his 18-year NFL career. He was inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame in 1996 and is a member of the Chargers Hall of Fame. — Eric D. Williams

NFC EAST

Cowboys get eight draft picks in exchange for running back Herschel Walker.

Many thought the Cowboys were crazy for trading their best player in 1989, but this move laid the foundation for their run of Super Bowls in the 1990s. How important was it? It’s immortalized on a wall inside the team’s new facility. It remains the most talked-about trade of its day and is unlikely to ever be equaled again. Coach Jimmy Johnson did not care so much about the players he received from Minnesota as he did the picks they turned into. — Todd Archer

Giants trade draft picks for quarterback Eli Manning.

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  “I got a phone call and it was Bill Belichick. I thought it was a friend or somebody playing with my phone. I actually cussed him out.”

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  Deadline day has come and gone, and only one marquee name — Patriots linebacker Jamie Collins — switched teams. Here’s how Chip Kelly and Hue Jackson both won Tuesday.

MINNEAPOLIS — The Minnesota Vikings drafted Laquon Treadwell in the first round last spring, 23rd overall, in hopes he could spark a passing game that had ranked 31st in the league in 2015. And while the Vikings’ passing offense did jump to 18th in the league in 2016, Treadwell was responsible for only 15 yards of the team’s output.

He caught one pass, from Sam Bradford on Nov. 6 against the Detroit Lions, during a rookie season marred by nagging injuries that found Treadwell on the periphery of the Vikings’ offense at many times. He was targeted only three times in the nine games he played, before an ankle injury suffered on special teams in Jacksonville on Dec. 11 curtailed his season.

“I was feeling more comfortable, and they were ready to put me out there, but I just went down on special teams,” Treadwell said on Jan. 2. “That’s a tough break for me, but you’ve got to get healthy and come back ready.”

The 21-year-old said he plans to spend his offseason training in Dallas. When he returns to the team facility for the start of offseason workouts in April, Treadwell will be expected to make a significant jump.

“He is going to be like any young player that’s going from Year 1 to Year 2. This is going to be an offseason that is very critical,” offensive coordinator Pat Shurmur said. “Highly drafted players come in, they’re coming off of that circuit, and all of a sudden they’re thrown in. He’s had a chance now to go through the process once. He’ll have a feel for what it’s going to feel like, and we’re anticipating he’s going to come back and be raring to go and make great improvements.”

While some receivers make a big jump from their first to their second seasons, others find that the spike in performance happens from their second to third seasons. Players who spent time on the field as rookies, Shurmur said, are often able to pick things up quicker in their second seasons. Treadwell saw just 76 snaps as a rookie, placing him 160th out of the 202 rookies who got on the field in 2016, according to ESPN Stats & Information. But Shurmur believes Treadwell got enough time in meetings and on the practice field to absorb what he needs to grow in 2017.

“He had little nagging things that kept him from getting in there full-time early,” Shurmur said. “He didn’t get targeted a bunch of times, but he blocked well, and he competed. That’s really the starting point for a young player.”

SAN DIEGO — One of the team’s foundation players last season, new Los Angeles Chargers defensive coordinator Gus Bradley will have to find a home for second-year pro Joey Bosa.

The former Ohio State star earned Associated Press defensive rookie of the year honors last season, finishing with 10.5 sacks in 12 games. Much was made in the lead-up to last season where Bosa would play in the team’s 3-4 defensive alignment and whether or not he would be a good fit in the scheme.

But Bosa proved effective, moving all across the defensive formations and playing solidly against the run.

With Bosa returning to his more familiar position of a base defensive end in Bradley’s 4-3 scheme, the hope is the Chargers can get even more production from Bosa in his second season.

Bradley said he’s already met with Bosa at Chargers Park. Bosa was a player the Jaguars strongly considered with the team’s No. 5 overall selection before the Chargers picked him at No. 3. Bosa traveled to the team’s facility in Jacksonville for a pre-draft visit.

The Leo defensive end is generally Bradley’s pass-rush specialist. Typically, Bradley is looking for a player that’s 6-3 and 255 pounds to play that position, which more likely fits the skill set of pending unrestricted free agent Melvin Ingram.

Bosa compared himself to another player Bradley is familiar with last season in Seattle Seahawks defensive end Michael Bennett. Bradley coached Bennett as the defensive coordinator for the Seahawks.

Patriots backup QB Jimmy Garoppolo is the subject of trade speculation thanks in large part to his very strong performance in two starts early in the 2016 season. But how much do just 63 pass attempts tell us about how good a quarterback he’s likely to be?

Garoppolo averaged 7.9 yards per attempt and posted an 88.7 QBR in 2016, both of which are excellent figures. But it’s such a small sample size that it’s unwise to assume he’ll continue at that pace. On the other hand, he did play well for two starts, so his underlying potential is more likely to be good than if he had been mediocre in the same short span. It’s not much, but there is some information to be gleaned.

To quantify just how much weight we should put on that two-game performance, we can use something called Bayes’ theorem, which allows us to systematically update our beliefs as new information arrives. In this case, we can begin with the belief that Garoppolo is drawn from the distribution of QB talent found in the NFL. Then, with every dropback he makes, we can update our belief about where his talent level lies. This approach not only tells us what our best guess of his underlying talent level should be, but also tells us how much uncertainty there should be around that best guess.

Our starting point is the fact that Garoppolo is drawn somewhere from the pool of QB talent typically found in the NFL. Great QBs like his teammate Tom Brady are rare, as are very poor QBs. Although below-average QBs can be found anywhere, they’re weeded out of the league fairly efficiently. So QBs with near league-average talent levels make up the bulk of the population on NFL rosters. Our belief starts with stating that Garoppolo’s true talent level lies somewhere on that spectrum from poor to great, so we can create a probability distribution that best matches the actual distribution of talent. Without knowing anything else about an NFL QB, this distribution captures our prior belief about how good he is.

Then he makes his first throw and we have the tiniest better idea of how good he is. Then, after another throw, we have an ever so slightly better idea of how good he is. We continue to update our belief until after enough dropbacks that we can be confident that he’s actually as good (or bad) as what we’ve seen so far. For a guy like Garoppolo with only 63 attempts over two starts, and a total of 94 attempts through his three seasons, our uncertainty remains very large.

Using just pass attempts from 2016, our updated best guess of his talent level is 7.0 yards per attempt (YPA), which is much closer to league average than his raw average to date. This result underscores the fact that 63 attempts is far too little information to have any confidence in his underlying talent level. In fact, something called a 95 percent confidence interval, which tells us a range of results we can safely bet on, spans from well below average to superstar levels. It would take 500 attempts averaging 7.9 YPA before we could confidently say a QB is above average, and it would take about 1,000 attempts, or about two full seasons, before we realistically could be confident in what kind of talent level a QB has. (Using all 94 of his career attempts yields about the same results.)

Any team considering a trade for Garoppolo should put very little weight in what we saw in 2016.

Of course, for potential bidders like the Bears, Browns and 49ers, the real question isn’t so simple. It’s not a question of Garoppolo or not, but a question of Garoppolo or their next-best option, which is most likely a first-round draft pick such as Mitch Trubisky (North Carolina) or Deshaun Watson (Clemson). And first-round picks carry their own uncertainty. As a group, since 2000, first-round QBs have a career average of 6.8 YPA, with a range of uncertainty even larger than for a player like Garoppolo with 63 throws in two starts.

As little as we know about how good Garoppolo really is, we know even less about a generic first-rounder, plus our best guess at Garoppolo’s underlying talent is slightly higher. With this method, we can even estimate the probability that Garoppolo would be better than the generic first-round QB, given certain assumptions. With what we’ve seen so far, there’s a 59 percent chance Garoppolo would turn out better. If we repeat the same analysis but instead use a more advanced metric of performance — expected points added — we get very similar results: a 64 percent chance that Garoppolo is better than a generic-first rounder.

To get a more intuitive sense of this analysis, the chart below plots our best estimate of a QB who averages 7.9 YPA after a varying number of attempts. The blue line shows that after only a few attempts, our estimate should be close to league average, but as the number of attempts increases, our estimate should approach his actual average. The green line indicates the average YPA for the generic first-round QB, and the red line is the league average overall. The shaded areas depict the uncertainty we should have about where the true average lies. In this case, the mean will be within the shaded area about 67 percent of the time.

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