Traded players who will have biggest impact on 2025 NFL season

• TRADED FROM: Seattle Seahawks
• TRADED FOR: 2025 third-round pick

As far as big-ticket QB acquisitions go, this move might have lacked the zest of, say, landing Matthew Stafford. Smith is not going to instantly infuse a team with Super Bowl buzz. He's not even a lock to finish 2025 as one of the top 10 players at his position. But is that so bad? Spring and summer hype have a way of crumbling in September; just ask the Jets fans who were celebrating what turned out to be the peak of the Aaron Rodgers era back in May of 2023.

Smith brings something more appealing to the table, an element his new team has been without for too long: a high floor. In each of the past three seasons, he posted a passer rating of 92.1 or better, which no Raiders QB managed to do in that span. It feels fairly safe to predict Smith will be, well, safe in Vegas, where he'll reunite with Pete Carroll (who first helped him reemerge as a viable NFL starter in Seattle) and be placed at the controls of a Chip Kelly offense fronted by tight end Brock Bowers and stud rookie running back Ashton Jeanty. Establishing early stability will be essential for the Carroll-John Spytek regime to start strong.

Can Smith can win a Lombardi Trophy this season? Who knows? But he does have a good shot to make a Raiders reset finally stick, and that would be plenty impactful enough to justify his position here. 

• TRADED FROM: Houston Texans
• TRADED FOR: 2025 third- and seventh-round picks, 2026 second- and fourth-round picks (with Washington receiving a 2025 fourth-round pick)

A year ago, Tunsil was on a Texans team that had been catapulted to relevance by the stunning rookie success of a former No. 2 overall pick. He has to be feeling a strong sense of déjà vu -- though the Commanders must be hoping it's not too strong, given the way Houston stumbled in C.J. Stroud's second pro season. One thing working in Washington's favor: The organization's continued willingness to pour resources into giving Jayden Daniels the support he needs to work his magic. Tunsil's new O-line is already in better shape than the unit he left in Houston, thanks to the 2024 additions of Tyler Biadasz, Nick Allegretti and Brandon Coleman, with 2025 first-rounder Josh Conerly Jr. joining the fray.

Daniels won Offensive Rookie of the Year and supercharged the Commanders to the NFC title game despite Washington allowing 50 sacks last season, tied for seventh-most in the NFL. Coleman (a third-round pick last year) gave up 10 while lined up at left tackle, according to Next Gen Stats, by far the most on the team. Tunsil was credited with just 2.5 sacks in Houston last season. With the five-time Pro Bowler locking down his blindside, Daniels should be able to better weather the challenges that will come with Year 2 and keep his development on the right track, which will make a huge difference in Washington this season and beyond.

• TRADED FROM: Kansas City Chiefs
• TRADED FOR: 2026 fourth-round pick

• TRADED FROM: Los Angeles Rams
• TRADED FOR: 2025 sixth-round pick

Adding players who will help a young QB perform better seems like a mind-numbingly obvious thing to do -- and yet, when it actually happens, it can feel revolutionary. Caleb Williams arrived in Chicago last season with plenty of talented options to get the ball to, but the O-line was lacking. So the Bears hit the trade market for Jackson and Thuney, who -- along with newly signed center Drew Dalman -- will be tasked with beefing up Williams' protection. Thuney, a two-time first-team All-Pro, has the stronger track record, while Jackson is coming off a disappointing stint with the Rams, but in terms of potential impact, he and Jackson are hard to separate. So they land in the top five together, a positive sign that the Bears have a solid grasp on how to move forward with Williams. If they keep the former No. 1 overall pick clean enough to truly live up to his potential, they should thereby spare us from having to ever again ask if a Chicago coaching hire can "save" the incumbent QB (or vice versa) -- in which case I might just go back into this file and push Thuney and Jackson to the top.

• TRADED FROM: Pittsburgh Steelers
• TRADED FOR: 2026 third-round pick, 2027 fifth-round pick (Pittsburgh also received a 2027 sixth-round pick)

In each of the past three seasons in Dallas, you could count on two things: 1) CeeDee Lamb compiling at least 150 targets, 101 catches and 1,100 receiving yards, and 2) no other Cowboys player even sniffing those totals. Pickens should finally give Dak Prescott a second reliable option at wideout, making new coach Brian Schottenheimer's chances of returning his squad to competitiveness in the NFC look much sturdier than they did before this deal was consummated. The drama that swirled around Pickens at times in Pittsburgh can't be completely ignored, given that he is heading to a franchise in Dallas where off-field narratives are practically a natural resource. But this will also be arguably the best setting of Pickens' professional career. Over his three years in Pittsburgh, the offense was regularly in flux, and he was the only Steelers player to top 1,000 receiving yards in a given season (2023). In Dallas, Pickens just needs to figure out how to support established studs Prescott and Lamb, and that should give him room to flourish.

• TRADED FROM: Seattle Seahawks
• TRADED FOR: 2025 second- and seventh-round picks (Pittsburgh also received a 2025 sixth-round pick)

The Steelers would get an A+ for supporting their star QB with Metcalf -- if they only had a star QB to begin with. Unfortunately for Metcalf, none of the apparent options for Pittsburgh are guaranteed to provide the same level of quarterbacking he enjoyed in Seattle, where he was able to collect at least 900 receiving yards in each year of his career. The veteran's best hope to extend that streak is for Aaron Rodgers to decide to suit up in Pittsburgh, but even if Rodgers commits, there will still be plenty of uncertainty around the four-time MVP, who will turn 42 in December and hasn't played at a high level consistently since 2021. If, however, Metcalf ends up fielding throws from a mix of Mason Rudolph, Will Howard and Skylar Thompson, his job will presumably be much harder than it's ever been. He's talented enough to elevate an offense, but one receiver can accomplish only so much without at least a replacement-level arm distributing the ball. If this were a weekly offseason Traded Players Power Rankings (can you imagine?), Metcalf would be at imminent risk of falling.

• TRADED FROM: San Francisco 49ers
• TRADED FOR: 2025 fifth-round pick

I was initially going to rank Samuel higher, maybe even with Tunsil, swayed by the name brand and some basic dot-connecting about how his defense-wrecking potential will pair with Jayden Daniels' playmaking ability. But there are other, peskier dots to factor into the equation, like Samuel's career-low 8.7 yards per touch in 2024, and the amount of time that has elapsed (and the eight games he's missed) since his only Pro Bowl season in 2021. So he sits here, just below the players who seem certain to make a big impact, to account for either of these two plausible potential outcomes: 

1) Kliff Kingsbury extracts the maximum value from his versatility, plugging him in next to Terry McLaurin to make the Commanders offense into a weekly juggernaut.

2) The 29-year-old settles into a minor supporting role, chipping in the occasional clutch catch or big gain.

There's also the secret, third (and, perhaps, most likely) outcome, in which Samuel is neither a star nor a bust, providing minimal opportunities for takeage -- but that wouldn't change his positioning here.

• TRADED FROM: San Francisco 49ers
• TRADED FOR: 2025 fifth-round pick, 2026 sixth-round pick (Minnesota also received a 2025 sixth-round pick)

We are moving into the range of solid guys, sensible acquisitions whose names might have been quickly lost in the offseason shuffle but who will definitely help their new teams in a real way. Mason did good work with the career-high 164 touches he was given during Christian McCaffrey's injury absence in San Francisco last season, racking up 880 yards from scrimmage and three total scores before heading to injured reserve with a high ankle sprain. Mason's 100-yard performance against the Vikings in Week 2 apparently helped convince head coach Kevin O'Connell that it was worth trading away some draft capital to bring in the fourth-year pro instead of turning to a rookie to fill out the RB depth chart.

Whether or not you think the Seahawks will regret laying out big bucks for Sam Darnold, one thing we can surely all agree on is that it is not optimal when he's rocking the second-most rushing attempts on your team, as he did in Minnesota last season. Partnering the 25-year-old Mason with 30-year-old veteran Aaron Jones should only help J.J. McCarthy as he goes through his first season as an NFL starter.

• TRADED FROM: Philadelphia Eagles
• TRADED FOR: OG Kenyon Green, 2026 fifth-round pick (Philadelphia also received a 2026 sixth-round pick)

This seems like one of the ideal ways to use the trade market, scooping up a useful defender who, to hear Eagles GM Howie Roseman tell it, would still be starting in Philadelphia if not for a salary-cap crunch. Gardner-Johnson was credited by Next Gen Stats with allowing the most touchdown catches (eight) among safeties with 30-plus coverage snaps in 2024, but he also finished in the top 17 in that group in passer rating allowed (77.1) and EPA when targeted (-5.7). He should slide nicely into a secondary that helped Houston rank sixth against the pass, with his ballhawking abilities (six picks in 2024) making him an appealing complement to Calen Bullock (who broke out as a rookie with five picks of his own last season) and Derek Stingley Jr. (who became the NFL's highest-paid defensive back after his second consecutive five-pick campaign). 

• TRADED FROM: Tennessee Titans
• TRADED FOR: 2025 sixth-round pick (Dallas also received a 2025 seventh-round pick)

Though it was struck amid March's free agency frenzy, this deal -- in which the Cowboys acquired a veteran off-ball linebacker in exchange for a late-round pick swap -- rated low on the frenzy meter, somewhere above a gentle stir and below a light froth. But we're not here to talk about hype. We're here to talk about Murray's impact, and while he is on his third team since the Chargers selected him in the first round of the 2020 NFL Draft, he's still a capable veteran poised to soak up tackles in the defense of new coordinator Matt Eberflus, who has leaned on linebackers in previous stops like T.J. Edwards (Chicago) and Shaquille Leonard (Indianapolis).  

• TRADED FROM: Jacksonville Jaguars
• TRADED FOR: 2026 seventh-round pick

For this final spot, I considered a handful of options, including new Eagles guard Kenyon Green, new Cowboys QB Joe Milton III, new Saints defensive tackle Davon Godchaux and new Texans guard Ed Ingram. But based on the criteria of this list, I had to give the nod to Kirk, who should spend plenty of time with the ball in his hands as what coach DeMeco Ryans termed "a friendly target" for C.J. Stroud. The 28-year-old upped his yards-per-catch mark in each season since inking that infamous $72 million pact with Jacksonville in 2022. Before suffering a season-ending broken collarbone last October, Kirk hit a new career best with 14.0 yards per catch. Factoring in the uncertainty around Tank Dell's recovery from a serious knee injury, it's not a stretch to think Kirk could outpace the Texans trade acquisition who topped this piece last year, Stefon Diggs, whose injury-abbreviated 2024 season serves as a reminder to take pre-Memorial Day projections like the ones made here with the largest grain of salt you can get your hands on.