Giannis Antetokounmpo ended a fourteen-year run in Milwaukee on Tuesday and was in a Heat uniform by Wednesday, and I spent the next 48 hours thinking about every NFL guy who should be watching that and taking notes.
June 1st already happened, Myles Garrett to the Rams and AJ Brown to the Patriots in the same 24 hours, which was the single most chaotic afternoon professional football produced in maybe ever, and the offseason isn’t close to done.
Stars move now. There are five NFL trades that should happen before this era passes everyone by, and at least a couple of the guys involved have already started telling you exactly what they think about their situation.
Justin Jefferson Belongs in Cincinnati With Joe Burrow and Ja’Marr Chase
Justin Jefferson should be traded to the Bengals. He was on the 2019 LSU national championship team with Joe Burrow and Ja’Marr Chase, the Vikings are paying him $35 million a year through 2028, and he went on Kevin Hart’s YouTube show and said, unprompted, that he is jealous that Burrow and Chase still get to play together.
That’s not an anonymous source. Not a guy who talked to his agent who talked to someone who knows someone. Jefferson himself, on camera, looking at the interviewer and telling you exactly where his head is at.
He’s jealous. He said it out loud on Kevin Hart’s YouTube channel like it was nothing, which is about as clear a signal as you are ever going to get from a guy who is not supposed to be saying that.
The 2019 LSU offense was 15-0, Burrow was the Heisman winner, Chase was the best receiver in the country, and Jefferson was right there catching everything that came his way while that team went undefeated through the postseason and won the whole thing, and now Burrow and Chase are in Cincinnati making plays together every week while Jefferson is running routes for JJ McCarthy in Minnesota, which is a perfectly fine situation if you’re a Vikings fan and an absolutely brutal one if you’re the best wide receiver in football watching your college teammates become what they’ve become without you.
The Vikings handed him Kyler Murray and JJ McCarthy. Murray is fine. McCarthy might be something real, and I hope he is, but neither of them is Joe Burrow, who is healthy and locked in and throwing to Ja’Marr Chase on a Cincinnati offense that just needs a third weapon to become completely unguardable, and Jefferson is sitting there on YouTube telling you he’s jealous about all of it.
I do not know how you watch the 2019 LSU reunion happening in Cincinnati and you’re Justin Jefferson and you’re not making phone calls. That’s Burrow to Chase with Jefferson running the opposite route. Go ahead and draw that coverage. Good luck.
Lamar Jackson to Arizona Is the Most Unhinged of the NFL Trades That Should Happen
Lamar Jackson has a no-trade clause, which means this only happens if he decides he wants it. The Ravens went 8-9 last year, missed the playoffs, and fired John Harbaugh. Lamar has a $260 million contract and can go wherever he wants. Arizona went 3-14 and needs a quarterback more than any team in football.
The Cardinals’ current quarterback room in 2026 is Jacoby Brissett in a contract holdout, Gardner Minshew, and a third-round rookie named Carson Beck.
Brissett went 1-11 as a starter last year and still hasn’t shown up to camp because he wants more guaranteed money, which is a sentence I was not prepared to type. Gardner Minshew is doing his best. Carson Beck is a rookie. That is the leadership situation at the most important position in football for an NFL franchise in 2026. Congratulations to them.
If you’re Lamar Jackson and you’re looking at where Baltimore is heading right now versus where it was three years ago, and you’re looking at a young roster in Arizona that would be immediately built around you with the cap space to actually do it, the math on staying in Baltimore gets more complicated by the week. He’s not requesting a trade and this isn’t that kind of story, the no-trade clause means nothing moves unless he decides he wants it.
Lamar Jackson to the Arizona Cardinals would be an UNHINGED amount of football, and I mean that in the best possible way, because he would take a roster that went 3-14 last year and get them to eight or nine wins on sheer force of will, and once they build the receiver room around him the way Arizona’s cap space allows for, you’re looking at a team that went from the bottom of the NFL to AFC contender in one offseason, and that is exactly the era we are living in right now.
The Colts Are Wasting Jonathan Taylor and the Jaguars Should Steal Him
Jonathan Taylor ran for 1,585 yards last year at 4.9 yards per carry with 18 touchdowns. The Colts’ dead cap on a Taylor trade is $2.562 million, which is the entire acquisition cost for a running back who just had one of the best seasons at the position in the entire league, and I cannot explain how that number is real in professional football in 2026.
The reason it’s that low is that the Colts are stuck, the GM and head coach are both described as being on the hot seat heading into 2026, and when a front office is fighting for its jobs it sometimes prioritizes the rebuild over the guys who would cost something to finish what it already started, and Jonathan Taylor is a problem they’d rather turn into someone else’s win.
Jacksonville went 13-4 last year in Liam Coen’s first season. They won the AFC South. They are a real football team, not a meme, not a rebuild, not a team you’re circling on the schedule hoping to catch on a bad week, and then Travis Etienne signed with the Saints in free agency and the Jaguars suddenly have a real question at running back for a team that is absolutely built to compete in 2026.
Taylor is 25, the dead cap is almost nothing, and the team around him is ready right now, so Jacksonville doesn’t fix his situation, they complete it. That’s the move.
TJ Watt Has Never Won a Playoff Game and the 49ers Can Fix That
TJ Watt is 0-5 in the playoffs as a Steeler. The 49ers finished dead last in the NFL in sacks last season, with both of their top pass rushers returning from ACL injuries. Nick Bosa plus TJ Watt on the same defensive line might be the most terrifying pass rush the league has ever seen, and I say that as a Steelers fan who is not exactly thrilled about typing it.
After the playoff loss in January 2026, someone asked Watt what Pittsburgh needs to change to actually win a postseason game.
He said “I haven’t had the answer for a long time, so don’t ask me.”
Think about that. He’s been to five playoff games as a Steeler and won ZERO of them, and after the most recent one he stood up and told everyone in that room that he doesn’t have the answer anymore and they should stop expecting one from him.
The Steelers are paying Watt at $41 million a year while Nick Herbig is on a four-year $100 million extension and Highsmith is still on the roster, which is over $80 million going to one position group while Aaron Rodgers is 42 years old and Pittsburgh is trying to figure out what exactly it is right now. Watt is caught in the middle of all of that uncertainty, on a team that keeps getting to the playoffs and keeps going home early, and the 49ers are sitting there dead last in the league in sacks desperately needing exactly what he does.
Bosa plus Watt. In Shanahan’s scheme. On a team that already has Brock Purdy and a Super Bowl defense when healthy. At some point that conversation happens, and when it does it is going to be a very short conversation.
George Pickens Is Playing Second Fiddle in Dallas and the Chargers Need Him
George Pickens put up 93 receptions, 1,429 yards, and 9 touchdowns last year in his first season in Dallas, which is a monster number by any measure, and the Cowboys responded by franchise tagging him at $27.3 million for 2026 while already paying CeeDee Lamb $34 million a year.
That math stops working at some point. You cannot sustain paying two elite receivers a combined $60-plus million when the rest of your roster also has to get paid, and eventually someone calls the Cowboys with an offer that makes the receiver room problem go away and Pickens ends up somewhere that actually needs him.
Both the Chargers and the Ravens have already been linked to Pickens in trade conversations, and the Chargers make the most sense of the two. Justin Herbert is 27 and one of the best quarterbacks in the AFC, the Chargers have the cap space to make the trade work, and adding Pickens to that offense makes them a legitimate contender, not a team you’re hoping to catch on a bad week.
Pickens is 23 and Herbert is 27, which means this isn’t getting in at the end of something, this is getting in at the very beginning, and the Cowboys are eventually going to make this call, and the Chargers should be right there waiting when they do.
Giannis just proved that fourteen years in one city doesn’t have to be your whole story if the situation stops making sense, and the NFL already had its own version of that on June 1st when Garrett and AJ Brown both moved on the same afternoon and none of us were ready for either of them.
Jefferson told you he’s jealous. Watt told you he doesn’t have the answer. The blueprint is right there.
Stars don’t have to rot on the wrong team anymore.
