The Washington Commanders have a rare opportunity to generate that type of scenario while also filling a critical need on their roster by trading for New Orleans Saints edge rusher Chase Young before the November 5 NFL trade deadline.
Young was the Commanders’ No. 2 overall pick in the 2020 NFL draft and was named the 2020 NFL Defensive Rookie of the Year until injuries derailed his career and he was moved to the San Francisco 49ers midway through the 2023 season.
Young signed a one-year contract worth $13 million with the Saints in March 2024.
After the Saints lost their fifth consecutive game and fell to 2-5 following a 33-10 loss to the Denver Broncos, Bleacher Report’s Kristopher Knox added Young to his list of the top NFL trade targets heading into Week 8.
“Trading pass-rusher Chase Young, who is on a one-year, $13 million deal, would provide no 2025 cap relief,” Knox pointed out. “However, the Saints would gain crucial draft capital. Young has 1.5 sacks and 13 quarterback pressures in seven games this season.
Trade loophole Could Allow Young’s Return.
The initial reaction to any trade proposal that sends Young back to Washington would most likely be that it breaches the NFL’s regulations on player re-acquisition through trade. Those regulations essentially prohibit any team from dealing a player and then re-acquiring him via trade for two years, as detailed by the NFL Network’s Ian Rapoport on his official X account on September 30.
However, the wording of the NFL’s trade rules may contain a loophole — a technicality, if you will — that would allow Young to return to the Commanders through trade.
All of the language prohibiting teams from re-acquiring a player through trade for two years uses the terms “assignor club,” which in this case is the Commanders, and “assignee club, any club beyond the assignee club, or combination thereof,” which in this case is the 49ers and, presumably, the Saints.
While the “assignor club” would have been the Commanders if he had been traded to the 49ers, you could argue that the “assignor club” tag no longer applies to the Commanders because Young became an unrestricted free agent after the 2023 season, which was the final year of the 4-year, $37.5 million rookie contract he signed with the Commanders in 2020.
From that perspective, Young no longer has a “assignor club” because, as an unrestricted free agent, he became the de facto “assignor club” because he and he alone decided where he would play in 2024, and all ties to the original “assignor club” were severed
The simple conclusion is that after Young became a free agent, the NFL’s regulations regarding re-acquiring players through trade should no longer have applied to him.
Young never fulfilled their early promise in Washington.
Matt Holder of Bleacher Report identified edge rusher as one of the Commanders’ main weaknesses heading into Week 8, with Washington leading the NFC East with a 5-2 record.
Young was a member of Washington’s final playoff team in 2020, when they fell to the Tampa Bay Buccaneers in the NFC Wild Card Round – the same year he was voted NFC Defensive Rookie of the Year and made his sole Pro Bowl appearance.
Following a ruptured ACL in Week 10 of the 2021 regular season, Young missed 22 of the next 25 regular-season games, including all but three in 2022, and recorded only 1.5 sacks in 2021 and 2022.
Since leaving the Commanders, Young has improved his career with 7.5 sacks in 2023, matching his rookie season total, and even recorded a sack for the 49ers in an overtime loss to the Kansas City Chiefs in Super Bowl LVIII.
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