5 NFL Teams That Could Be Aggressive Sellers Before the 2025 Trade Deadline

Every NFL team may fancy itself as a contender during this portion of the offseason, but it won’t be long before some of those summer hopes fade into fall miseries.

Teams dreaming of lifting the Lombardi Trophy during July’s training camps can soon suffer nightmares when sitting several games below .500 ahead of the November 4 trade deadline.

Whether marquee free-agent signings didn’t live up to lofty expectations, early-round rookies struggled with the transition to the pro game, promising coaching hires failed to inspire their players or injuries ravaged the roster, these hopefuls will quickly find themselves scrambling to offload veterans, dump salary and add draft capital to improve their chances of getting things right in 2026.

Squads off to strong starts will swoop in by offering up picks and prospects for proven veterans who can bolster their championship aspirations.

Although the buyers will likely be the teams left standing and getting the most attention at the end of a long season, let’s instead take a closer look at the teams that might find themselves on the selling end of this relationship.

Dallas Cowboys

AP Photo/Jessica Tobias

The Dallas Cowboys had an opportunity to reboot this offseason after suffering through a tepid 7-10 campaign in 2024, the team’s worst since 2020.

Despite a myriad of warning signs that the current core doesn’t have what it takes to restore the franchise to its glory days, ownership opted instead to take half measures and stave off a rebuild for at least one more year.

While the Cowboys did part ways with head coach Mike McCarthy, who boasted the fourth-most wins of any coach since the start of the 2021 season, they promoted offensive coordinator Brian Schottenheimer into the position.

Schottenheimer found a modicum of success in his debut campaign with the club two years ago—overseeing a unit that ranked top-five in both total and scoring offense—but regressed significantly last season, finishing 17 and 21, respectively, in the same categories.

Dak Prescott’s season-ending injury certainly contributed to the middling marks, but the team was struggling even before losing its star quarterback. He went just 3-5 in his eight starts while completing 64.7 percent of his throws (nearly five percent fewer than his MVP-caliber season a year prior) with just 11 touchdowns and eight interceptions, only one fewer than he had in 17 starts in 2023.

With Prescott heading into his age-32 season and coming off a hamstring injury that could lead to further regression, the Cowboys could be farther from a championship than ever.

Given how desperate ownership is to make it back to the biggest stage—it’s been three decades since Dallas reached the NFC Championship Game, let alone the Super Bowl—and a potential replacement for Prescott waiting in the wings in Joe Milton III, it may not be long before the Cowboys elect to initiate a roster overhaul.

If Dallas is well out of contention by mid-October, expect this once-proud organization to start selling off pieces and load up on assets to retool with in the 2026 offseason under another coaching regime.

Houston Texans

AP Photo/Ashley Landis

The Houston Texans spent the 2024 offseason going all-in to capitalize on a Super Bowl window that unexpectedly opened during C.J. Stroud’s phenomenal rookie season.

The quarterback endured a rough sophomore slump, though, and Houston barely limped back into the playoffs with little chance of hoisting the Lombardi.

Now at a crossroads following back-to-back divisional-round exits, the Texans must get back on track to capitalize on the flexibility Stroud’s cheap rookie deal still affords.

With just $11.6 million in available finances—the fifth-fewest in the NFL—and pricy veterans such as Danielle Hunter, Dalton Schultz, Tytus Howard and Joe Mixon taking up huge swathes of cap space, the Texans can’t afford to squander their limited window to contend.

While the Texans are still a strong bet to win their third consecutive AFC South title and could even make a good bit noise in the playoffs if everything goes right this year, a poor start could rapidly lead to the team hosting a fire sale at the trade deadline.  

If Houston continues to regress—the team opened last season 6-2 before a 4-5 stumble in the back half of the campaign—the front office can get a head-start on a roster overhaul, one that could see several well-compensated players shipped off in exchange for much-needed cap space.

With inevitable extensions for Stroud and blossoming defensive star Will Anderson Jr. set to clog up the team’s books, the Texans would benefit significantly from exchanging aging vets for picks that can be converted into cost-effective replacements.

Miami Dolphins

AP Photo/Marta Lavandier

The Miami Dolphins have morphed from one of the league’s most exciting up-and-coming contenders to a dysfunctional fringe playoff squad within the span of just two seasons.

The optimism surrounding this squad in 2023—a campaign in which Miami led the league in offense and featured a healthy Tua Tagovailoa under center for all 17 games for the first time in his career—quickly faded during a trying 2024 season that ended with the star quarterback again sidelined and perennial All-Pro wideout Tyreek Hill quitting on the team.

With whispers that head coach Mike McDaniel has lost the locker room and once-critical veterans like Jalen Ramsey looking for an exit despite a clear need for their services, it’s hard to envision this group turning things around without a major shakeup.

Bradley Chubb even broke a generally unspoken code among players to not shed light on internal turmoil, telling reporters that the team was “lying” about a culture change last season.

While the talented edge-rusher indicated there is an actual shift happening in 2025, it won’t matter how content the locker room is if Tagovailoa continues to miss extended stretches. The team has gone 33-21 in games the quarterback has participated in since the start of the 2021 campaign and just 4-10 without him on the field.

If Miami stumbles to another 2-6 record over the first two months of the upcoming season, the idea of entering a full-blown rebuild will be appealing. It’s not the outcome fans may have envisioned after back-to-back playoff berths—albeit runs that both ended in blowout Wild Card Round defeats—but one that makes sense if this team can’t stay healthy and return to its dominant offensive ways.

New York Giants

AP Photo/Adam Hunger

The New York Giants are stuck between a rock and a hard place.

Despite suffering through one of the worst seasons in the organization’s history, ownership granted a stay of execution to head coach Brian Daboll and GM Joe Schoen with the condition that the pair somehow find a path to success in 2025.

It doesn’t appear that a reversal of fortunes is in the cards for this regime. DraftKings Sportsbook has pegged Big Blue’s win total at a meager 5.5, tied for the second-fewest in the NFL and only ahead of the lowly New Orleans Saints.

While Vegas may not always be right and there’s been a growing trend of worst-to-first transformations in recent years, it seems far-fetched that an offense that rated bottom-three in both yardage and scoring last year will become even somewhat competent with a quarterbacks room primarily consisting of a washed Russell Wilson, inconsistent Jameis Winston and promising-but-raw rookie Jaxson Dart.

Wilson will be first at the helm after Daboll named the nine-time Pro Bowler his starter during the draft, but his chances of turning the ship around are bleak.

The 36-year-old oversaw five straight losses—including an ugly defeat to the rival Baltimore Ravens in the playoffs—to end his rocky one-year stint with the Pittsburgh Steelers, a team that opted not to make any efforts to retain him despite a complete lack of potential heirs on the roster.

If Wilson can’t get the job done, the Giants could turn to Winston for a spark. It may not be long before his turnover-prone ways submarine the team’s slim hopes, though, as the 2015 No. 1 overall pick has thrown as many interceptions as touchdowns (15) while posting a 3-7 record as a starter over the last three years.

Thrusting Dart into the fire could be Daboll’s last-ditch hope of retaining his position, but the Ole Miss product is going to have his work cut out adjusting to the speed of the NFL behind an offensive line PFSN ranked No. 28 in the league going into the 2025 season.

If Dart is starting and the Giants are well out of contention by October, expect this regime to start selling ownership on their future potential while dumping veterans and bringing more assets aboard.  

Seattle Seahawks

AP Photo/Ryan Sun

The Seattle Seahawks have been sending mixed signals throughout the offseason.

It first seemed they would be engaging in rebuilding efforts, shipping off the triumvirate of Geno Smith, DK Metcalf and Tyler Lockett—the core of Seattle’s offense for the past three seasons—following another near-playoff miss in 2024.

Seattle then pivoted to signing veteran replacements for its outgoing core, inking both Sam Darnold and Cooper Kupp to pricy deals in free agency.

The Seahawks are clearly hoping their $100 million investment in Darnold pays off and results in the franchise’s first playoff berth under head coach Mike Macdonald.

The front office bolstered Darnold’s protection with a first-round selection of offensive lineman Grey Zabel—as well as Day 3 picks Bryce Cabeldue and Mason Richman—and added weapons like second-round tight end Elijah Arroyo and fifth-round receiver Tory Horton to complement rising star Jaxson Smith-Njigba, Kupp and fellow veteran Marquez Valdes-Scantling.

Seattle failed to display clear direction even during the draft, though, as it also invested a third-round pick in Jalen Milroe. The Alabama quarterback is widely regarded as a developmental prospect who still needs to refine his passing abilities, but still became the fourth signal-caller off the board due to his unteachable athleticism.

If the Darnold experiment fails to pay off—the first-round pick-turned-journeyman has a long history of underwhelming as a starter outside of his lone season with the Minnesota Vikings—it could quickly lead to Seattle opting to strip things down to the studs and forge ahead with a youth movement led by Milroe.