by John Imamura

Created on: December 01, 2009

Why aren't there many trades in the NLF? Actually there are a lot of trades that happen in the NFL, but the majority are probably done during the off season or on draft day. Also, other professional sports have minor leagues or farm leagues that they can trade players from.

Trades during the NFL season don't take place during the regular season for a variety of reasons. First of all, the vast differences in player salaries may make it difficult to make deals with the salary cap.

Another reason is that a traded player more often than not, has to learn a new offensive or defensive system. It may take a couple weeks to get used to the new system, plus the NFL season is a short season compared to other professional sports. The players have to have an immediate impact or it may actually hurt a team.

This may be the main reason. Can a player that is traded come to an NFL team and make an immediate impact.? Sure, but there are not many scenarios that come during a season that warrant a team to execute a trade.

Remember the Hershel Walker trade? "The Trade" happened during the season and involved players and draft picks. Those picks had a direct impact on the success of the Dallas Cowboys going forward.

The only thing is that you don't see many trades like that unless both teams are desperate for a position, if they think the player will have a immediate impact, or if the combination of players and draft picks will help their team. Those trades usually happen in the off season.

Sometimes we see NFL teams make trades on draft day to move up and down the draft order or players are traded after they are picked. Phillip Rivers was traded for Eli Manning because Eli Manning did not want to play in San Diego.

The San Francisco 49ers traded up with the New England Patriots to pick Jerry Rice. In 1999, The new Orleans Saints traded 8 picks to move up and pick Ricky Williams. So actually there are trades made in the NFL, but you are usually not going to see them happen during the year.

Either it makes no sense to trade the player financially or the player will need 2-3 weeks to learn a new playbook or defense. For that reason you will see trades happen in the NFL during the off season, but you will not see many during the year.

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