The Lions need cornerback help, but 5 years of NFL trade history show why getting it won’t be nearly as simple as it sounds
A review of the NFL’s in-season cornerback market since 2021 shows just how rarely young, established starters become available — and what teams usually get when they make a move.
Detroit Lions fans want their team to trade for a cornerback. They want it more than anything, and the assumption seems to be that pulling off a deal like that is simple. It’s not. The Lions have been linked to Pittsburgh Steelers cornerback Joey Porter Jr. as a potential trade target, and that situation is one of the more realistic ones out there. A starting-caliber cornerback in his early to mid-20s, possibly on the market? That doesn’t happen often because teams tend to lock these guys down.
Pittsburgh has its whole policy of not doing extension talks during the season, though they did make an exception for T.J. Watt. Maybe they’ll make an exception for Porter as well. Nobody knows where that’s going or when a trade could happen.
But the bigger question here isn’t just about Porter. It’s about what cornerback trades actually look like in the NFL. So here’s what a deep dive into every single cornerback trade since the 2021 season revealed.
The trade history is not encouraging
| Year | Player | Trade | Compensation | Career starts before trade | Starts for new team |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2021 | Bradley Roby | HOU → NO | 2022 3rd + 2023 6th | 49 | 11 |
| 2021 | C.J. Henderson | JAX → CAR | CAR gets Henderson + 2022 5th; JAX gets Dan Arnold + 2022 3rd | 10 | 22 |
| 2021 | Stephon Gilmore | NE → CAR | 2023 6th | 122 | 3 |
| 2021 | Tay Gowan | ARI → PHI | Gowan + 2022 5th for Zach Ertz | 0 | 0 |
| 2021 | Kary Vincent Jr. | DEN → PHI | 2022 6th | 0 | 1 |
| 2022 | Rashad Fenton | KC → ATL | Conditional 2023 7th | 16 | 1 |
| 2022 | William Jackson III | WAS → PIT | Conditional 2025 pick swap | 64 | 0 |
| 2023 | J.C. Jackson | LAC → NE | NE gets Jackson + 2025 7th; LAC gets 2025 6th | 46 | 6 |
| 2023 | Rasul Douglas | GB → BUF | BUF gets Douglas + 2024 5th; GB gets 2024 3rd | 57 | 23 |
| 2024 | Marshon Lattimore | NO → WAS | WAS gets Lattimore + 2025 5th; NO gets 2025 3rd, 4th, 6th | 97 | 11 |
| 2024 | Tre’Davious White | LAR → BAL | BAL gets White + 2027 7th; LAR gets 2026 7th | 85 | 0 |
| 2025 | Jarvis Brownlee Jr. | TEN → NYJ | NYJ gets Brownlee + 7th; TEN gets 6th | 16 | 2 |
| 2025 | Greg Newsome II | CLE → JAX | JAX gets Newsome + 6th; CLE gets Campbell + 7th | 47 | 11 |
| 2025 | Tyson Campbell | JAX → CLE | CLE gets Campbell + 7th; JAX gets Newsome + 6th | 59 | 12 |
| 2025 | Roger McCreary | TEN → LAR | LAR gets McCreary + conditional 6th; TEN gets conditional 5th | 38 | 0 |
| 2025 | Michael Carter II | NYJ → PHI | PHI gets Carter + 7th; NYJ gets John Metchie III + 6th | 25 | 1 |
| 2025 | Jaire Alexander | BAL → PHI | PHI gets Alexander + 7th; BAL gets 6th | 76 | 0 |
| 2025 | Sauce Gardner | NYJ → IND | IND gets Gardner; NYJ gets Adonai Mitchell + two 1sts | 55 | 4 |
| 2025 | Ja’Sir Taylor | LAC → NYJ | Conditional 2028 7th | 11 | 1 |
Going back to 2021, the results are mixed at best. Bradley Roby got moved for a 2022 third-round pick and a 2022 sixth-round pick. He had 49 career starts before the trade and wound up starting 11 total games for the Saints, 10 of which came in a season other than the one in which he was traded. C.J. Henderson had started 10 career games before getting traded to Carolina, where he started 22 games. That’s not bad. Stephon Gilmore had 122 career starts, but he was on the back half of his career. Carolina gave up a 2023 sixth-round pick and got just three starts out of him before an injury derailed things.
In 2022, William Jackson had started 64 career games when Washington traded him to Pittsburgh. He never started for the Steelers. In 2023, J.C. Jackson got moved around, starting 46 games for the Chargers and just six for the Patriots. Rasul Douglas went from the Packers to the Bills with 57 starts under his belt and started 23 games for Buffalo. That’s arguably the one genuinely good example.
Then you get to 2024 and 2025. Marshon Lattimore went from the Saints (97 starts) to the Commanders, where he started just 11 games. Tre’Davious White went from the Rams to the Ravens with 85 career starts and didn’t start a single game for Baltimore. He appeared in seven games but never cracked the starting lineup. Greg Newsome had 47 starts before his trade, then started 11 for his new team. Tyson Campbell had 59 starts and managed 12 for his new team. Roger McCreary, who is now with the Lions, had started 38 games for the Titans, got traded to the Rams, got hurt, and never really played for them. Jaire Alexander got traded to the Eagles and never suited up. Sauce Gardner got traded to the Colts and played just four games before a left calf strain shut him down.
What does that mean for the Lions?
This is not a case against the Lions ever trading for anybody. That’s not the point. The point is that the type of trade Lions fans want does not happen all the time. It just doesn’t. With the exception of Sauce Gardner, these are mostly older players getting moved at the end of their contracts. The only two examples of young cornerbacks getting dealt are Newsome and Gardner, and both situations didn’t really work out. Newsome got traded to the Jaguars, who decided not to keep him. He’s now with the Giants.
You’re probably thinking the Rams do this type of stuff all the time. Offseason trades? Sure. But the offseason band-aid has been ripped off. It’s over. We can litigate it, do revisionist history on how early the Lions knew about Terrion Arnold’s situation, and go back and forth. It doesn’t matter. What matters is right now.
Can the Lions pull off a trade right now? Yes. Are they going to get exactly what fans want so badly out of it? I don’t know. I kind of don’t think so, unless it’s a specific situation. The Joey Porter situation is a perfect example of what the Lions should be going for. [[FLAG:contract]]But attached to that is a $30 million a year payday.[[/FLAG]] That’s a lot of money. The Lions can afford it, and $30 million a year is not exactly what it looks like in terms of cap hits every single year. Detroit has been able to maneuver things financially. But it takes two to tango. Is Pittsburgh actually going to want to do the deal? And how many times in your football-watching lifetime have you seen a situation that looks completely dead between a team and a player, only for it to get fixed? It happens all the time.
The ‘F them picks’ move is rarer than you think
The Sauce Gardner deal is the only true “F them picks” move we’ve seen since 2021. Yes, draft picks have been traded in all of these deals, but no team has gone out and traded away first-round and second-round picks to go get a cornerback. It happened once last year. That’s it.
I do believe the Lions will make a trade. I’ve been saying it all offseason. I think they’ll trade for a cornerback at the deadline. I don’t know who it’s going to be. I don’t know if it’s going to be Joey Porter Jr. But this is the year the Lions make a move. They have to. Asking for it to be done right now in September is asking for a lot. More often than not, these deals get done in October, mid-to-late October, early November, or right around the deadline.
Let’s just baseline it. This is what life looks like. This is real life, not Madden. The Rams aren’t even doing the things fans think they’re doing in season. So let’s wait, see what happens, and go from there.
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