As the NFL trade deadline approached, one of the biggest assumptions was that the league’s struggling teams were going to sell parts.

Think of it like someone moving and having a yard sale: whatever you don’t take with you, give it away for all you can get, right? Except this year, the awkward franchises acted like that person who wants $50 for their old pair of shoes and $175 for a 1997 television.

The list of potential business targets that could be found on the Internet before the deadline included dozens of players. The garage sale must have had tables and tables of knick-knacks and gadgets. Oh, you need a veteran cornerback who is good in man coverage? You’ll find him behind the garage, next to the third-down running backs. A defensive tackle who can get after the passer, you say? Sure, it’s next to the diva receivers and elderly passers, near table 5. Shop, shop, shop!

We all thought it would be this way because there was a lot of teams on the move. By moving, I mean bad. There are 10 teams with three or fewer wins. Even if we eliminate the wacky Dallas Cowboys, who sent a fourth-rounder for Carolina wide receiver Jonathan Mingo, there are still plenty of teams that could have benefited in the long run from getting anything in exchange for their expiring or important contracts.

The New Orleans Saints were one of the few sane sellers on Tuesday, trading Marshon Lattimore to Washington and Cleveland dipped into seller water by dealing Za’Darius Smith to Detroit, but otherwise, almost everything the world stood and shrugged their shoulders. .

The Panthers didn’t move Adam Thielen, Jadeveon Clowney or Miles Sanders. The Giants didn’t move Azeez Ojulari or Darius Slayton. The Raiders did not trade DT Adam Butler. The Patriots did not trade Jonathan Jones or KJ Osborn. Tennessee did not move Sebastian Joseph-Day.

Crickets.

What gives?

It looked like the Minnesota Vikings were heading to the yard sale on deadline day with plenty of opportunities to use their limited draft capital to walk away with something nice that could help them shore up positions in need of more depth or a little more versatility. More pressure from the defensive tackle position or corner depth could have turned an already good defense into a less flawed unit. Any type of big move — maybe a Jeffery Simmons or a Jaycee Horn — could have made this a great defense.

But when 3 p.m. CT arrived on November 5, the Vikings left the garage sale with nothing.

Much of the reaction was: What happened? Do they really want to win? Why not go all-in?

The answer to all of this is: who were they supposed to have?

If teams weren’t willing to trade, there wasn’t much the Vikings could do. If there had been a dozen players moved it would have made sense in Minnesota, then it would have been reasonable to question the Vikings’ decisions, but none of the league’s buyers were able to buy.

Is it because struggling teams hope they can have mediocre seasons? Is this because potential sellers wanted to maintain their dignity rather than obtain conditional end-2027 choice swaps? Was it the general managers and coaches trying to save their bacon?

Whatever the reason, the Vikings were one of a lot of teams that had every reason to shop around and just weren’t able to keep anyone away from the lowest players.

So, will a quiet deadline cost the Vikings dearly in the short term?

Well, we can’t forget that they’ve already added two players at positions of serious need, namely Cam Akers and Cam Robinson.

They also have a pretty good list as it stands. The Vikings are fourth in the NFL in the catch-all DVOA metric, they have a better point differential than the undefeated Kansas City Chiefs and their next three games are extremely winnable against the Jaguars, Titans and Bears. There is still a way to win 12 games. This is generally a threshold for teams competing in the Super Bowl, as 33 of the 48 teams to reach the Super Bowl since 2000 have won at least 12 regular season games.

The deciding factor might be luck when it comes to injuries. If the Vikings stay healthy, they will be able to play just about anyone. They beat the 49ers, Texans and Packers and lost by just two points to the Lions. There are a handful of other teams in their tier when it comes to key stats like DVOA and point differential, but no one is running away from them in the NFC. However, if important players are manhandled during the last sequence, they could have difficulty making up for their absences, especially on defense. We saw this last year when the defense lost Byron Murphy Jr. and DJ Wonnum and struggled to make up for their absences.

That’s life in the NFL. Even the contenders don’t have much depth. The margins are fine. There will always be luck. Without reinforcements, the Vikings will need them on their side in the final nine games.