At least the Kansas City Chiefs took their shot.
The Chiefs fan base has been understandably outraged at the team’s failure to land a running back, but at least part of the reason this didn’t happen was as expected.
The price was too high.
The running back in question was Breece Hall, who’s now one of the lone New York Jets stars still standing after Tuesday's trade deadline. According to Nate Taylor of ESPN via Myles Simmons of Pro Football Talk, Kansas City offered a fourth-round pick in next year’s draft, while the Jets wanted a third.
The difference between a third- and fourth-round pick might seem insignificant to casual fans, but it typically represents the line in the sand with what NFL buyers are willing to give up at the deadline. It’s a negotiation that can turn into a tug of war, and apparently that’s what happened with Hall to at least some extent.
How you view this deal probably depends on whether you’re a short-term or long-term person. Short-termers will probably be annoyed that the Chiefs didn’t give ground and go get Hall, who’s had 581 yards rushing to go with two touchdowns, along with 21 passes for 178 yards. He’s a quality back who would fit the Chiefs' needs perfectly.
But the long-termers would counter by saying that Hall would have been a rental, and that Kansas City can get a quality player in the third round that they’d have under contract control for four years. Both arguments hold water to some extent, but they also have some holes.
Most prominently, the need here is acute for the Chiefs. There’s no doubt about that, given that running back Isiah Pacheco is out with an MCL sprain, but Taylor noted that Pacheco is expected to return after the team’s Week 10 bye. Not getting anyone is a huge risk going forward, but GM Brett Veach and Andy Reid knew exactly where their line in the sand was, and they proceeded accordingly, elevating running back Clyde Edwards-Helaire from the practice squad to fill Pacheco’s slot.
As for the Jets, doing this doesn’t make a whole lot of sense given that they now have a star running back but no viable quarterback unless Hall has the arm strength to run the wildcat. So this may or may not be the Jets doing Jets things. They did get a pretty good haul for cornerback Sauce Gardner and defensive lineman Quinnen Williams on Tuesday, so this could also be a classic Jets version of two steps forward, one step back.