One of the great things about the NFL is that, every now and then, a player will get a second chance with a franchise where things didn’t go as planned the first time around.
The Washington Commanders have a unique opportunity to create that type of storyline and fill a crucial need on its roster by making a trade for New Orleans Saints edge rusher Chase Young ahead of the November 5 NFL trade deadline.
Young was the No. 2 overall pick by the Commanders in the 2020 NFL draft and was the 2020 NFL Defensive Rookie of the Year before injuries took his career off the rails and he was eventually traded to the San Francisco 49ers midway through the 2023 season.
Young signed a 1-year, $13 million contract with the Saints in March 2024.
Bleacher Report’s Kristopher Knox put Young on his list of the top NFL trade targets ahead of Week 8 after the Saints lost their fifth consecutive game and dropped to 2-5 following a 33-10 loss to the Denver Broncos.
“Trading pass-rusher Chase Young, who is on a one-year, $13 million deal, would provide no 2025 cap relief,” Knox wrote. “However, it would net the Saints some valuable draft capital. Young has tallied 1.5 sacks and 13 quarterback pressures in seven games this season.”
Trade Loophole Could Allow For Young’s Return
The knee-jerk reaction to any trade proposal that brings Young back to Washington would probably be that it violates the NFL’s rules on players being re-acquired via trade. Those rules essentially ban any team for trading a player then re-acquiring him via trade for 2 years — the specifics of which were shared by the NFL Network’s Ian Rapoport on his official X account on September 30.
However, the wording of the NFL’s trade rules might contain a loophole — a technicality, if you will — that might allow for Young’s return to the Commanders via trade.
All of the language banning teams from re-acquiring a player via trade for two years uses the terms “assignor club” which in this case, is the Commanders, in relation to “assignee club, any club beyond the assignee club, or combination thereof” which in this case is the 49ers and, presumably, the Saints.
For Young, while the “assignor club” would have been the Commanders in the case of his trade to the 49ers, you can make an argument 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 purview, Young no longer has an “assignor club” because once he became an unrestricted free agent he also became the de facto “assignor club” because he and he alone was making the decision on where he would play in 2024 and all ties to the original “assignor club” had been severed.
The bottom line is once he became a free agent, the NFL’s rules on re-acquiring players via trade should have no longer applied to Young.
Young Never Fulfilled Early Promise in Washington
Bleacher Report’s Matt Holder listed edge rusher as one of the biggest weaknesses for the Commanders headed into Week 8 and with Washington sitting atop the NFC East with a 5-2 record.
Young was actually part of Washington’s last playoff team in 2020, when they lost to the Tampa Bay Buccaneers in the NFC Wild Card Round — the same year he was named NFC Defensive Rookie of the Year and made his only Pro Bowl.
Following a torn ACL suffered in Week 10 of the 2021 regular season, Young missed 22 of the next 25 regular-season games, including all but 3 games in 2022 and had just 1.5 sacks in 2021 and 2022.
Since leaving the Commanders, Young revamped his career in 2023 with 7.5 sacks — matching the total from his rookie season — and even had a sack for the 49ers in an overtime loss to the Kansas City Chiefs in Super Bowl LVIII.
