Let's make a deal.

[Dave Lapham]

Trades are more of a rarity in the NFL as compared to major league baseball. There are only 7 rounds in the NFL draft and most trades involve one team's draft picks. Most NFL teams feel the best way to build an organization is through the draft. On draft day you will see teams like the Pats trade down or out of the first round to accumulate additional draft picks. Veteran players are not often included in executing these trades. Mike Brown has made 5 trades in the last 290 days that have involved moving or acquiring veteran players. His most recent was trading Keith Rivers for a 5th round pick in the 2012 draft. His two moves before that involved a pair of high profile players......2 of the best known in franchise history. Carson Palmer to the Raiders for a first round pick in this draft and a second rounder in 2013. Chad Ochocinco went to the Pats for fifth and sixth round picks in consecutive drafts. Time will tell how these deals will work out, but early returns look favorable for the Bengals. Trader Mike has been busy in Cincinnati wheeling and dealing. Can you think of another franchise that has been this busy structuring these types of trades? Will we see more of this sort of trade or is it an anomoly?

[Bengals1181]

only other team I can think of is the raiders. Carson Palmer, Richard Seymour, Aaron Curry, Randy Moss, Jason Campbell, and I'm sure others I'm missing.

[Bengals1181]

Charlie Casserly spoke with Bengals.com about the same subject today. Some highlights:

"And there has never been a lot of trades and one of the reasons is because draft picks are about all you have to trade," Casserly said. "And there are only seven of them. When you have people say, 'We want to build through the draft,' then you don't want to give up the picks and that makes it tougher.

"If you want to get something for a player with a big contract instead of cutting him, the acceleration into the salary cap prevents you from doing that."

"It's an advantage when you're dealing with the owner," said Casserly, who before the 1992 draft swapped places in the first round and gave the Bengals the 28th pick in the first round.

"When the owner is making the decision, he doesn't have to look over his shoulder. Whether it's a negative or positive, he's the one making the call and there's no second-guessing.

"You know going in Mike is going to have an opinion and he's going to be realistic. When you're negotiating with Mike, you've got to get straight to the point. He doesn't want you to waste his time or your time. Ron Wolf was like that. If you talked trade more than two minutes with Ron Wolf, that was a long time."

Brown worked the Palmer deal himself as he did the Wilkinson trade. But he also has more people on the ground now, such as director of player personnel Duke Tobin, and they were also in the teeth of the conversations in the Leonard and Rivers deals.

But the concept is the same. It didn't take much time at all to pull off a Wilkinson deal that was supposed to be complicated by the franchise tag.

"It took one conversation," Casserly said.

http://www.bengals.com/news/article-...f-ff3af291a00c

[mikesteelnation1]

The steelers aren't quite the wheelers and dealers Mr brown has been of late, but usually when we do trade for anyone of note it ends up pretty good. BTW I've got to say mikey has gotten killer value from most of these trades.

We've traded for bettis, and got him for not even close to what he was worth for us. Traded up to get polamalu in the draft. Traded santonio Holmes for a pick that was parlayed into a vet db that started as the #2 for a yr. Played special teams for a year, and Antonio brown. Over 2k yards from scrimmage last year, and most likely the 2nd wr we've drafted we give a second long term contract to. I'll skip the trade for staley.. when 50% of the trades get you a future hofer, and another nets a long term pro bowl guy, the staley mistake can be excused