{"id":472421,"date":"2026-02-11T08:08:09","date_gmt":"2026-02-11T08:08:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/472421\/"},"modified":"2026-02-11T08:08:09","modified_gmt":"2026-02-11T08:08:09","slug":"nfl-could-allow-teams-to-trade-draft-picks-five-years-in-advance","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/472421\/","title":{"rendered":"NFL Could Allow Teams To Trade Draft Picks Five Years In Advance"},"content":{"rendered":"

As things currently stand, NFL teams are permitted to trade draft picks no further than three years into the future. That could soon change. \"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

During an appearance on the\u00a0Pat McAfee Show (video link<\/a>), ESPN\u2019s Adam Schefter reported there will be a push from at least one team to extend the range for draft picks being dealt. Efforts will be made for selections as many as five years down the road to be allowed in trades, per Schefter. This will be something to monitor during next month\u2019s league meetings.<\/p>\n

Any expansion of trade flexibility would represent a shift in the direction of the NBA. That league\u2019s rules allow for picks up to seven years in the future to be dealt. It should be kept in mind, though, that the Stepien Rule<\/a> applies limits to how often teams can trade away a first-round pick. As a result of the rule, NBA teams cannot trade future first-round selections in consecutive years.<\/p>\n

No such rule currently exists in the NFL. If things were to change this spring, however, a similar provision may receive consideration. Any widening of the range for draft capital to be traded \u2013 and its associated conditions \u2013 could of course lead to a change in roster-building strategy. Largely speaking, teams around the NFL attempt to remain competitive from one year to the next (due in large part to the requirement they spend close to the salary cap over any three-year period).<\/p>\n

That approach could be altered to an extent if collecting large amounts of draft capital over an extended period became a viable option for rebuilding franchises. On the other hand, it would be interesting to see if contending teams became increasingly willing to part with picks in the distant future to facilitate win-now moves on a more frequent basis. Recent years have seen an uptick in trades leading up to the deadline, while blockbuster swaps in the offseason will no doubt remain possible in any given year no matter the circumstances.<\/p>\n

The most recent case which saw an NFL team trade picks three years into the future was the Browns-Texans Deshaun Watson<\/a>\u00a0deal. Cleveland sent Houston a package highlighted by first-round selections in three consecutive years. The team would have been able to spread those picks out over a longer period (provided the Texans had been amenable to it, of course) had the range for pick trades been longer. When rule changes are considered during the spring, the potential for things to change on this front will be something to watch closely.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"As things currently stand, NFL teams are permitted to trade draft picks no further than three years into…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":472422,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[559],"tags":[64,63,593,85],"class_list":["post-472421","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nfl","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-nfl","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/472421","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=472421"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/472421\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/472422"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=472421"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=472421"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=472421"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}