"Bengals trading Joe Burrow to the Cowboys for Dak Prescott" - NFL world floats equivalent of Anthony Davis-Luka Doncic trade

Elite players rarely gets traded for each other in professional sports, and yet that's what happened in the early hours of Sunday when the Dallas Mavericks traded superstar point guard and erstwhile-franchise face Luka Doncic to the Lakers for Anthony Davis, among other players/assets.

The swap has caught the attention of even reporters from other sports, particularly Ari Meirov, insider for The 33rd Team and host of the "NFL Spotlight" podcast, who struggled to come up with an NFL equivalent for it:

Fortunalely for him, the responses came quickly and voluminously

"Bengals trading Joe Burrow to the Cowboys for Dak and a first."

More responses can be seen below:

"Mahomes and Burrow switching spots," one suggested.

"Baltimore trades Lamar Jackson to the Cowboys in exchange for Dak Prescott and some picks," another recommended.

"Mahomes for Allen," another proposed.

---

Recapping the last time two top NFL players were traded for each other

Rarely have two top players been traded for each other in the NFL, but there have been a few notable examples.

Many will say “Eli Manning for Philip Rivers” in 2004, but both quarterbacks were still rookies and technically still not under contract at the time, so it involved the mere draft rights to them. A real example of an “elite-for-elite” trade would be when the Denver Broncos traded running back Clinton Portis to Washington for Champ Bailey (as well as a second-round pick) that same year.

But another instance of that has actually happened in the current decade: Jared Goff for Matthew Stafford in 2021. At the time, their respective franchises were in differing situations.

The Los Angeles Rams had transformed themselves into a Super Bowl finalist just two years after drafting Goff, but he had been struggling lately and was also not on the best of terms with head coach Sean McVay. Meanwhile, the Detroit Lions had made the playoffs thrice with Stafford, but he seemed to be entering the twilight of his career after a 5-11 finish to 2020.

That was when Brad Holmes, the new general manager at Detroit made a proposition to get his former player, which his LA counterpart Les Snead readily accepted. And both sides benefited in the long term.

Eleven months after the transaction was consummated, the Rams won Super Bowl LVI. The Lions, meanwhile, saw gradual improvements, going from 3-13-1 in 2021 to 9-8 and just missing the playoffs via tiebreak in 2022, reaching the NFC Championship Game in 2023 and clinching the NFC’s best record in 2024.

Both sides even met in the 2023-24 Wild Card Round at Ford Field, with the hosts winning 24-23.