The league presumably hopes to avoid full-blown, tank-job December fire sales, once teams know they're done and start flipping players for picks. However, you could also make a case that moving the deadline back to further in the season would allow teams to have a better understanding if they are ‘buyers' or ‘sellers'.
The NFL's trade deadline has been after Week 8 since 2012, when it was pushed back from Week 6 to — you guessed it — encourage more trades. But the NFL's trade deadline is so early compared to MLB, NBA and NHL.
According to Schefter, the question of moving the trade deadline will be addressed at the upcoming general managers meetings in late November, and then could be voted on at the NFL owners meetings this spring.
