He had a great year in 2014, and seemingly would be a strong addition to the Pats if we could somehow come up with the money (I'm not minimizing that problem). However, why would Andy Reid trade him? His record has been 11-5 and 9-7, and now he is starting out at 1-4. I would think he would be scrambling to do whatever he could to turn things around in the short term (to keep his job), rather than jettisoning important assets for this year.
Of course, occasionally teams in Salary Cap Hell trade away overpriced players before the deadline, but that is a different situation, they are less of an asset if overpriced. Similarly, sometimes teams trade players that are suspended (Talib), or being a locker room headache (Moss from Oakland), but again that makes them less of a short term asset to the struggling coach.
What seems much more common just before the trade deadline is for beleaguered coaches and GM's that are performing well below expectations is to trade future considerations (that they may not care about anyway because they will be fired unless they turn things around) for a short term bandaid. Or, it is common to trade a player that may have long term potential but is struggling in the short term because of a poor scheme fit (like the Ayers trade last year and the Hicks trade this year).
I can't really think of any examples of beleaguered coaches for teams performing way below expectations trading or jettisoning important fairly priced asset before the trade deadline. Can anyone else think of examples?
