The NFL trade deadline is rapidly approaching, but we have already seen several high-impact deals come together in recent weeks, and a feeling in the air that a perfect storm of blockbusters is forming.

Joey Porter Jr. was acquired by the Dallas Cowboys back on October 1, and the cornerback is already beginning to make an impact on a secondary that was in desperate need for an upgrade at the position.

In his 2026 debut against the Packers in Week 6, Porter Jr. held Jordan Love to a ludicrously low 39.6 passer rating, while breaking up one pass and not allowing a reception all night.

Meanwhile, three days earlier, and one week after losing Jaxson Dart for the season, the Giants flipped a fifth-round draft choice to the Minnesota Vikings for former first-round pick J.J. McCarthy.

McCarthy made his first start for the Giants on Sunday and played well enough to at least reinforce the narrative that New York could hold some semblance of a quarterback competition between McCarthy and Dart next spring and summer.

In Houston, McCarthy finished 20-of-28 passing for 252 yards, and suddenly with him behind center, the Giants rediscovered their identity in the running game as Cam Skattebo returned rushing for 124 yards in a 27-21 overtime victory.

Last season, we saw the Indianapolis Colts and Dallas Cowboys raid the fire-saling New York Jets to acquire All-Pro cornerback Sauce Gardner and All-Pro defensive lineman Quinnen Williams, repsectively, in hopes of propping open a couple of Super Bowl windows.

Neither team made the playoffs.

But, this season, there are several franchises currently in free-fall, several contenders with big holes to fill, and some genuine superstars who just might be available to change zip codes.

“The Colts could be about to have a fire sale,” one veteran personnel executive tells Between The Hashmarks. “I’d look for Grover Stewart to potentially be a fit for a contending team needing a defensive tackle.”

A Colts sell off may well be the expectation after coming from ahead to fall to Brian Flores and the Vikings, but it isn’t any less ironic, given Indianapolis’ pre-deadline aggressiveness last season before Daniel Jones’ ruptured Achilles slammed their Super Bowl window closed.

Meanwhile, speaking of locked shut Super Bowl windows, the Eagles are going to be a team to watch at the deadline.

Losing Jalen Hurts for the season combined with the Philadelphia Eagles facing a significant void year reckoning this offseason has led some executives in buildings around the league to believe Howie Roseman could be open for business.

“I’m not sure, to be honest,” an NFC West Executive told Between The Hashmarks, when asked which Eagles players he believes could be available. “Not much on offense, and I’m not sure they would want to tear down defense.

“Maybe someone like Dallas Goedert, if a team needed a tight end. Jordan Davis, Jalen Carter, Nolan Smith, Jonathan Greenard, Jalyx Hunt, they’d be on our list. We all could call and all could ask about Quinyon Mitchell or Cooper DeJean, but doubt they’re moving off either, with both on rookie deals.”

So, yeah, fire sale season may be upon us.

Ahead of the November 10 trade deadline, just 15 days away, I asked three veteran scouts to put on their general manager’s hat and identify the first player they would be calling about, who they realistically think could be had ahead of the deadline.

We’ll go deep on their responses inside this column.

But, first, we kick things off with arguably the game of the season, as Super Bowl MVP Kenneth Walker returned to Seattle Sunday night, leading the Kansas City Chiefs into a buzzsaw …

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The Seahawks and Chiefs spent the first 27-plus minutes of the first half sizing each other up, like a pair of championship boxers.

That is, until Jaxon Smith-Njigba got half a step of separation from budding Chiefs lockdown rookie cornerback Mansoor Delane, pulling down a perfectly placed Sam Darnold pass for a 28-yard touchdown with 1:44 remaining in the first half.

Defending champions 10, undefeated Chiefs 0.

The play, initially ruled out of bounds at the one-yard line, but Njigba’s elite hands and otherworldly spatial awareness combined as he stretched the ball cross the goal-line, breaking the plane on his eighth touchdown of this season and 28th in his first 57 games.

On Seattle’s next possession, Sam Darnold fired an almost identical pass, down the same sideline, that Smith-Njigba victimized Delane on, again, this time for 28 more yards.

In the first half, the Seahawks produced 259 yards of total offense, with Smith-Njigba accounting for 129 of them on six catches in eight targets.

Has there been a more dominant, a more complete receiver in this league since … Cris Carter? Randy Moss? That feels like the kind of company the defending Offensive Player of the Year is running with right now.

“His route running,” an NFC East scout tells Between The Hashmarks is Smith-Njigba’s best trait. “He has elite instincts to get open, he attacks defensive backs’ leverage in man, and he understands the pockets in zone coverage at a high level.”

By game’s end, the Seahawks’ Dark Side defense stifled Kansas City, holding the Chiefs to their lowest points in a game since the Mahomes era dawned, and Smith-Njigba finished with nine catches for 150 yards and. score.

Sunday night, in the shadow of the Space Needle was supposed to be the Seahawks staring in a mirror at their previous identity; a power-running and bruising operation headlined by Kenneth Walker, in what was a must-win game for the defending champs.

Instead, it was a rediscovery of how dominant Seattle can be, and a wakeup call for the Chiefs who breezed through the ‘easy’ portion of their schedule before running into the Smith-Njigba led fireworks show that dwarfs the Seafair Summer Fourth.

The Seahawks dictated to the Chiefs all night, finishing prolific 11-of-16 on third down, on the way to 410 yards of total offense, while the Chiefs managed more than one first down on just three of their nine possessions, forced three-and-out three times.

Defensively, Seattle rose to the occasion.

Walker entered not just as a catalyst for the Super Bowl banner hanging from the Lumen rafters, but as the NFL’s leading rusher with 665 yards.

Leonard Williams, Jarran Reed, and Byron Murphy stonewalled Walker, as he flew back to Kansas City with 701 yards.

There’s a mural of Walker in a Seahawks uniform not far from Lumen Field, but Sunday night, Seattle took white-out to his impact on the stat sheet.

In the secondary, Nick Emmanwori, Devon Witherspoon and the Seahawks’ secondary made Patrick Mahomes look human, limiting him to 165 yards with an interception.

It didn’t hurt that Harrison Butker missed a pair of field goals, one so short that it should allow TradWives everywhere the chance to cut their marriages short and pursue the career of their dreams.

In short, just about everything went right for the Seahawks on a night that they looked like the Seahawks again, somehow turning Patrick Mahomes into the version of Drake Maye who was snowed under in the Super Bowl just nine months ago.

A night that began with Game of the Year type billing served more as a reintroduction of what makes Seattle so threatening and that’s a spooky message for the rest of the NFL.