NFL Trade Deadline 2014: Twitter Reacts to Trades, Fails, Surprises, Non-Deals

If you were expecting huge trades and franchise-altering moves at Tuesday's NFL trade deadline, well, you were left disappointed. That is, unless you happen to be a huge Mark Barron fan.    

Indeed, the Tampa Bay Buccaneers safety was the biggest name to be moved Tuesday, completing a rather anticlimactic deadline. While Doug Martin and Vincent Jackson had been thought to potentially be on the move, it was two defensive players on the Bucs that were shipped out of town, Barron and Jonathan Casillas. 

Adam Schefter of ESPN reported the Barron deal:

ESPN's Adam Caplan added some details:

As Field Yates of ESPN noted, this wasn't the first time the Bucs either sent a big name packing or put together a deal to bring one in:

Barron is an interesting case. The No. 7 pick in the 2012 NFL draft has struggled at safety for the Bucs, with just three career interceptions. As Jason Cole of Bleacher Report noted, the team must have really been down on him to trade him at all:

On the other hand, they may not have seen a natural role for him on the team. A change of scenery and a change of role—Barron seems to be far more effective in the box than he is in coverage—could do wonders for the young player. Consider this, from Pro Football Focus:

"

In 2013, Mark Barron ranked second among safeties with a Run Stop Percentage of 10.9% when lined up in the box.

— Pro Football Focus (@PFF) October 28, 2014"

The Bucs also sent Casillas to the New England Patriots, per Ben Volin of The Boston Globe:

Still, the theme for much of the day was the lack of activity. While the MLB and NBA trade deadlines are often exhilarating, and the NHL trade deadline isn't far behind, the NFL trade deadline is, well, something different.

Here's what fans want it to be, courtesy of some sarcasm earlier in the day from Jason La Canfora of CBS Sports:

And here is what it almost always is:

In fact, so little happened before Tuesday's 4 p.m. ET deadline—though mercifully, the day wasn't completely devoid of trades—that Chris Burke of SI.com suggested the league should move the deadline back, while Christopher Hansen had a more dramatic suggestion than that:

So why do we get so few trades during the NFL regular season? Andrew Brandt of ESPN offered one reason:

And Albert Breer of NFL.com broke down the very specific scenarios in which NFL teams will actually consider trades:

Ah, but it was the Bucs who ultimately provided some action on deadline day. Still, as Breer noted, too many factors work against a bevy of deals on deadline day:

And so the trade deadline came once again not with a bang, but with a whimper. In the NFL, building through the draft and supplementing with smart, affordable free-agent signings will always trump giving up draft picks and young assets to acquire aging veterans and big contracts. 

In a sport where injuries are so prevalent and parity is the rule, sustainability is the name of the game. Simply put, splashy moves on deadline day aren't conducive to putting a consistently excellent team on the field.

Until that changes, deadline day will continue to be one of the most irrelevant events on the NFL calendar. 

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