Shopping for Buccaneers: Why the NFL Trade Deadline Is Deadly Dull

It's the NFL trade deadline. Do you know where your broken-down Buccaneers veterans are? 

The NFL trade deadline is the league's Shakespeare-on-the-Internet production of Much Ado About Nothing. It's a hurry-up-and-wait order for the football media; we pass along rumors and write speculative articles that read like fanfic for lovelorn Vincent Jackson/Kansas City Chiefs 'shippers.

The trade deadline is the one event on the NFL calendar that hasn't blown up into an irrational news-generating cyclone/feeding frenzy. Pro days at mid-major colleges generate roughly the same amount of real news and excitement as the drop-dead date to give your roster a big-name makeover.

Alfred Hitchcock's definition of suspense involved a bomb under a table in a room full of gangsters: The bomb might never go off, but the audience feels the tension. The NFL trade deadline is suspenseful, but instead of a Hitchcock we have Chris Mortensen, and the bomb is Dashon Goldson, so the result isn't exactly Vertigo.

This year's trade deadline will pass like every other trade deadline: with lots of gossip, speculation and thumb-twiddling, plus plenty of articles like this one that lament the fact the NFL trade deadline only brings gossip, speculation and thumb-twiddling.

Kathy Willens/Associated Press

The Tampa flea market

Goldson, Jackson and Doug Martin are the big names on this year's rumor mill; the Buccaneers are the hypothetical motivated sellers in a mostly imaginary market.

The Buccaneers are terrible, committed to rebuilding and aggressive on the transaction wire, plus they have a recent history of pulling the trigger on medium-sized deadline trades. If anyone is going to do business, it's the Buccaneers. Their wares have attracted some interest, just as the handmade wind chimes at the county craft fair "attract some interest." Ooh, those are interesting: so charming and eccentric and rusty. How much are they asking? Holy cow. Don't make eye contact with the saleslady, dear. She looks desperate.

No one watches Buccaneers games, so it is easy to pretend that Jackson, Goldson and Martin still have trade value, Jackson in particular. Poor Jackson has caught just 40 percent of the passes thrown to him (26 of 65), though "thrown to" is a relative concept in Tampa. Passes in Jackson's general direction often bounce 15 feet in front of him or sail well out of bounds over his head.

Still, years of having to reach over two defenders to retrieve terrible throws have taken their toll. Jackson has five drops on the year according to Pro Football Focus (subscription required), and he no longer drags his feet or toe-taps to turn errant passes into big plays the way he once did. Jackson can still play, and a 6'5" receiver can make himself useful. But he's only a 70-catch go-to threat these days if you scatter 150 passes in his general direction.

Jackson is still a consummate professional and positive locker room presence. If you need to import those things at the end of October, your season is already lost. Jackson also sounds very reluctant to leave Tampa, which does not make him any more attractive to potential suitors.

Goldson, meanwhile, has spent most of this season cleaning up the ends of 28-yard runs and earning assists by charging into the television frame to finish off running backs who were already falling to the ground. He also missed three games with an ankle injury after missing three games with an MCL sprain last year and missing offseason OTAs after foot surgery.

Aside from a declined illegal contact penalty in Week 2, Goldson has not committed any penalties this season, though he was flagged five times for unnecessary roughness last year. The Eagles are looking for a Nate Allen solution, but it's hard to see them dangling a high draft pick for a 30-year-old penalty-and-injury-prone safety who has not even defensed a pass this year and is getting shopped by a team that gave up 38 points in one half during his absence. Chip Kelly said at Monday's press conference that trade rumors make him "chuckle." You can see why.

Like Jackson, Goldson can help a team, but the returns are beginning to diminish.

Doug Martin is averaging 2.9 yards per carry. 'Nuff said. Teams looking for a running back may look outside of Tampa; Zac Stacy has 13 carries for 34 yards in his last three games. Who wouldn't be eager to trade for a running back riding the bench for a 2-5 team?

The NFL trade deadline is like a flea market where no one sells anything worth buying, and shoppers don't bring any real money. It is weeks of nickel-and-dime haggling over velvet Elvis paintings, with the occasional Bill Belichick skulking around looking for hard-to-spot valuables.

Nothing happening: a timeline

History tells us that all of our trade speculation, whether about the Buccaneers or any other team, will amount to nothing. Articles about the trade deadline always include a roundup of noteworthy trade deadline moves of recent history, because such roundups a) are informative; b) are easy to assemble off the top of the head, because deadline deals are so rare; and c) increase word counts so our editors know we are keeping busy.

Cliff McBride/Getty Images

The Aqib Talib trade

The Patriots got Talib from the Buccaneers in exchange for a fourth-round pick in 2012. It was a rare trade that actually had a major impact on playoff races: Talib played well for the Patriots in 2012 and 2013. Because it involved the Buccaneers and Patriots, it provides hope for some kind of Jackson or Goldson-related fireworks on Tuesday. Unfortunately, the Talib deal falls under the Bill Belichick Snookers Buddy for Personal Gain category; as such, it is not a template for how the Bucs will do business with Greg Schiano gone.

The Carson Palmer trade

Hue Jackson briefly seized control of the Raiders in the wake of Al Davis' death in 2011 and acquired Palmer (then quasi-retired due to frustration with the Bengals) for first- and second-round picks. Jackson was ousted weeks later and quickly returned to the Bengals, where he now directly benefits from the trade that further crippled the Raiders: One of the Palmer picks became Gio Bernard. Shakespeare could not make this stuff up.

The Trent Richardson trade

This was not really a deadline deal; it took place in late September. But true deadline deals are so rare that the list must be padded a bit.

David Goldman/Associated Press

You know the details on this one: The Colts got a running back who gets the kindergarten "major praise for minor accomplishments" treatment (14 carries for 37 yards, Trent? Way to go, buddy!), the Browns got a draft pick that became Johnny Manziel, and everyone on the Browns side of this coup got fired for unrelated reasons a few months later.

Richardson appears to be having a marginally effective season as a situational back, but his designated "situation" has become "well, it won't kill us if we are stuffed for no gain on this play."

The only true deadline deal of 2013 involved Isaac Sopoaga, a disappointing defensive tackle shipped from Philadelphia to New England in exchange for a late round pick swap. Jared Allen, Josh Gordon, Hakeem Nicks and Jairus Byrd were among the big names surfing the rumor waves this time last year, but none of them changed teams. It doesn't bode well for any Vincent Jackson blockbuster fantasies.

The 2012 deadline brought the Talib deal, but it also teased us with DeAngelo Williams and Dwayne Bowe rumors. The 2011 season was affected by the lockout, remember, and some strange things happened as teams scrambled to assemble their rosters in late July (Palmer disappeared into the Himalayas to meditate like Rambo, for example). The 2010 deadline was a month-long Albert Haynesworth vigil that ended with the Patriots quietly reacquiring Deion Branch and other micro-deals, like a trade between the Chiefs and Buccaneers for a defensive lineman named Alex Magee who started one game in his NFL career.

That's trade deadline dealing in a nutshell: Come for the Haynesworth, settle for the Sopoaga.

The fireworks are over. Go home.

Another staple of NFL trade deadline articles like this one is a paragraph or two musing about why the NFL trade deadline is so boring when the trade deadlines of other major sports are such exciting events. Baseball's trade deadline, after all, is far more interesting than baseball, and both the NBA and NHL produce the occasional midseason blockbusters to keep fans buzzing. In the NFL, we're lucky if a 31-year-old wide receiver for a lousy team gets dealt.

I will keep the obligatory paragraphs brief; after all, it's hard to keep your interest by carping about how boring my topic is.

Baseball and the NHL have minor leagues. The prospects baseball and hockey teams trade for are batting .330 in double-A or scoring goals in Hartford, and trading teams acquire their rights immediately. NFL teams trade for draft picks that could turn into one of several hundred college players in six months. The NBA has those bloated guaranteed contracts that cause Henny Youngman-style "Take my $40 million power forward with foot injuries...please!" trades, plus the twisted fan enthusiasm that comes with them. (We're being used as a salary-cap dump for other team's headaches! Two or three years of this, and we'll be ready to start rebuilding!)

There is little incentive to trade for a "missing piece" during a stretch run in the NFL, because missing pieces do not easily fit together. Wide receivers are not pinch-hitting outfielders. They need to learn terminology and establish timing with their quarterbacks. By the time that happens, if it even happens, the season might be over.

Speaking of getting wide receivers to fit in, we have already had our full 2014 allotment of trade deadline excitement. The Percy Harvin trade was essentially a deadline deal for a pair of teams that saw no reason to procrastinate until the last minute. In the backwards world of NFL trades, contenders sell off veteran assets, while last-place teams acquire "missing pieces"; the NFL just does not know how this deadline stuff works.

Kirk Irwin/Getty Images

Harvin set the market for premium talent so low—a conditional late-round pick for a Super Bowl hero—that there is no real advantage to parting with a content, still-serviceable veteran for whom a team has already budgeted this year. Moving Jackson or Goldson to slide up a few spots at the end of a draft is like selling the shoes off your feet for a dollar: The only reason to do it is if the shoes are causing blisters and you are better off barefoot.

So Jackson, Goldson and Martin will likely stay put, as will Mike Williams of the Bills (one catch in October—start the bidding war!), Michael Griffin and Nate Washington in Tennessee, Zac Stacy in St. Louis and every other recognizable player on a bad team making the rounds on this year's scuttlebutt circuit. If one of the rumored deals actually takes place, it will bundle with the Harvin trade to make this one of the busiest, most exciting trade deadlines of the last 20 years. Can you handle the intensity? Breathe into a paper bag if it all becomes too much for you.

Also, the Raiders are reportedly trying to shop Matt Schaub. Hope springs eternal, and at the NFL's annual garage sale, it never hurts to stick a price tag on something you will just throw away anyway.

Mike Tanier covers the NFL for Bleacher Report.