Sauce Gardner went from last place to first and teammate Quinnen Williams also is on the move in separate blockbuster trades.
The stunning deals by the New York Jets highlighted a flurry of activity ahead of the NFL's trade deadline on Tuesday.
Gardner, a two-time All-Pro cornerback, was sent to the Indianapolis Colts for two first-round draft picks and wide receiver Adonai Mitchell. The Jets will receive the Colts’ first-round selection in 2026 and in 2027.
Williams heads to the Dallas Cowboys for a second-round pick in 2026, a first-round pick in 2027 and defensive tackle Mazi Smith.
The Jets will get the better of the Dallas' two firsts in 2027. They acquired a pair of first-rounders when they sent two-time All-Pro pass rusher Micah Parsons to Green Bay before the season.
“Having the opportunity to acquire a talented player like Sauce Gardner was one we did not want to pass on,” Colts general manager Chris Ballard said. “He was a player that we scouted heavily coming out of college and there’s a reason he was the fourth overall pick. Sauce is a proven cornerback. His skill and competitive nature will elevate everyone’s play on the defensive unit. We’re thrilled he’s a Colt. On the same note, AD Mitchell is a great person and a great player. We believe he will have success in New York, and we wish him the best as he enters the next chapter of his career.”
The Cowboys (3-5-1) have the second-worst defense in the NFL and made two moves to bolster that unit. Before getting Williams, the Cowboys acquired linebacker Logan Wilson from the Cincinnati Bengals for a seventh-round pick.
The Jets are loaded with draft picks after dealing their two best defensive players and need to choose wisely to rebuild a franchise that has the longest active playoff drought in the NFL. They weren't finished making moves, however.
Cornerback Ja’Sir Taylor was acquired from the Los Angeles Chargers for a conditional seventh-round pick in 2028 just before the deadline at 4 p.m. EST. Taylor was a sixth-round pick of the Chargers in 2022 out of Wake Forest.
In other moves, wide receiver Jakobi Meyers was traded to Jacksonville from Las Vegas for draft picks in the fourth and sixth rounds.
The Seattle Seahawks got wideout Rashid Shaheed from the New Orleans Saints for picks in the fourth and fifth rounds.
Edge rusher Joe Tryon-Shoyinka was traded from Cleveland to Chicago for a seventh-round pick.
The Chargers got offensive lineman Trevor Penning from the Saints for a 2027 sixth-round pick.
Gardner, the AP Defensive Rookie of the Year in 2022, signed a four-year, $120.4 million contract extension with the Jets in July. He joins the AFC South-leading Colts (7-2) after spending his first 3 1/2 seasons with the losing Jets.
Williams, a three-time Pro Bowl pick and 2022 All-Pro, is signed through 2027 on a contract averaging $24 million per season.
Shaheed goes from the 1-8 Saints to the 6-2 Seahawks, giving Sam Darnold another option along with Jaxon Smith-Njigba.
Meyers, who requested a trade, gives the Jaguars (5-3) depth. Travis Hunter will miss at least three more games and Brian Thomas Jr,. Dyami Brown and Tim Patrick are dealing with injuries.
Wilson had requested a trade after his playing time decreased for the Bengals, who have the league's worst defense.
“Some guys have the ability to see a certain key and, at the same time, take a step up in the hole," Cowboys owner Jerry Jones said on his radio show on 105.3 The Fan. "He knows how to get in the gaps right now. ... For what we need right now, he can come in immediately and help us at linebacker.”
The reigning Super Bowl champion Philadelphia Eagles were aggressive leading up to the deadline. General manager Howie Roseman added three players to a talented roster to improve the team's chances for a repeat.
Since the Eagles (6-2) last played a game, they acquired edge rusher Jaelan Phillips and cornerbacks Michael Carter II and Jaire Alexander.
Phillips, who came from Miami on Monday for a third-round pick, immediately bolsters the pass rush. The 2021 first-round pick had three sacks in his last five games for the Dolphins. All of Philadelphia’s edge rushers combined have three sacks this season.
"For us, where we are as a team, what we believe is important to win a world championship and to being a great team, it wasn’t a hard trade to make,” Roseman said.
Carter gives the defense a veteran slot cornerback to allow defensive coordinator Vic Fangio more flexibility to use Cooper DeJean outside. Alexander, a two-time Pro Bowl selection, is a low-risk, high-reward acquisition.
The Baltimore Ravens also added an edge rusher, getting Dre’Mont Jones from Tennessee for a conditional fifth-round pick. Jones has 4 1/2 sacks this season so he’s an upgrade for the Ravens (3-5) at a position of need.
Several trades went down last month. The Bengals acquired Joe Flacco. The Rams got cornerback Roger McCreary. Defensive end Keion White went to the 49ers. Safety Kyle Dugger was traded to the Steelers. The Jaguars and Browns swapped cornerbacks Greg Newsome II and Tyson Campbell.
The Chargers added edge Odafe Oweh in a deal that sent safety Alohi Gilman to the Ravens.
AP Pro Football Writers Dennis Waszak, Mark Long, Teresa M. Walker and Schuyler Dixon contributed to this report.
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New York Jets defensive tackle Quinnen Williams (95), attends an NFL football practice at The Grove in Watford, England, Friday, Oct. 10, 2025. (AP Photo/Kin Cheung)
Miami Dolphins linebacker Jordyn Brooks (20) and linebacker Jaelan Phillips (15) defend Atlanta Falcons running back Bijan Robinson, center, during the first half of an NFL football game, Sunday, Oct. 26, 2025, in Atlanta. (AP Photo/Mike Stewart)
WASHINGTON (AP) — The Senate is headed toward a vote Wednesday on a war powers resolution that would put a check on President Donald Trump's ability to carry out further military attacks on Venezuela, but the president was putting intense pressure on his fellow Republicans to vote down the measure.
Trump has lashed out at five GOP senators who joined with Democrats to advance the resolution last week, raising doubts that the measure will ultimately pass. Yet even the possibility that the Republican-controlled Senate would defy Trump on such a high-profile vote revealed the growing alarm on Capitol Hill about the president's expanding foreign policy ambitions.
Democrats are forcing the vote after U.S. troops captured Venezuelan leader Nicolás Maduro in a surprise nighttime raid earlier this month.
“Here we have one of the most successful attacks ever and they find a way to be against it. It’s pretty amazing. And it’s a shame," Trump said at a speech in Michigan Tuesday. He also hurled insults at several of the Republicans who advanced the legislation, calling Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky a “stone cold loser” and Sens. Lisa Murkowski of Alaska and Susan Collins of Maine “disasters.”
Trump's latest comments followed earlier phone calls with the senators, which they described as terse. The president's fury underscored how the war powers vote has taken on new political significance as Trump also threatens military action to accomplish his goal of possessing Greenland.
The legislation, even if passed by the Senate, has virtually no chance of becoming law because it would eventually need to be signed by Trump himself. But it represented both a test of GOP loyalty to the president and a marker for how much leeway the Republican-controlled Senate is willing to give Trump to use the military abroad.
Republican Senate leaders are trying to defuse the conflict between their members and Trump as well as move on quickly to other business.
In a floor speech Wednesday morning, Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., vented his frustration as he questioned whether this war powers resolution should be prioritized under the chamber’s rules.
“We have no troops on the ground in Venezuela. We’re not currently conducting military operations there,” he said. “But Democrats are taking up this bill because their anti-Trump hysteria knows no bounds.”
By Wednesday evening, Republican leaders were moving to dismiss the measure under the argument that it is irrelevant to the current situation in Venezuela. That procedure will still receive a vote.
Sen. Josh Hawley, a Missouri Republican who helped advance the war powers resolution last week, has indicated he may change his position.
Hawley said that Trump's message during a phone call last week was that the legislation “really ties my hands." The senator said he had a follow-up phone call with Secretary of State Marco Rubio that was “really positive.”
Hawley said that Rubio told him Monday "point blank, we’re not going to do ground troops.” The senator said he also received assurances that the Trump administration will follow constitutional requirements if it becomes necessary to deploy troops again to the South American country.
“We’re getting along very well with Venezuela,” Trump told reporters at a ceremony for the signing of an unrelated bill Wednesday.
Hawley's position left the vote margin for the resolution, which advanced 52-47 last week, razor thin.
However, Collins told reporters Wednesday she will still support the resolution. Murkowski and Paul have also indicated they won't switch.
That left Sen. Todd Young, an Indiana Republican, with the crucial vote. He declined repeatedly to discuss his position but said he was “giving it some thought.”
Democratic Sen. Tim Kaine, who has brought a series of war powers resolutions this year, said he wasn't surprised at Trump's reaction to senators asserting their ability to put a check on the president.
“They're furious at the notion that Congress wants to be Congress,” he said. “But I think people who ran for the Senate, they want to be U.S. senators and they don't want to just vote their own irrelevance.”
Under the Constitution, Congress alone has the ability to declare war. But U.S. presidents have long stretched their powers to use the might of the U.S. military around the globe.
Ohio State University professor Peter Mansoor, a military historian and retired U.S. Army colonel with multiple combat tours, said that trend since World War II allows Congress to shirk responsibility for war and put all the risk on the president.
In the post-Vietnam War era, lawmakers tried to take back some of their authority over wartime powers with the War Powers Resolution of 1973. It allows lawmakers to hold votes on resolutions to restrict a president from using military force in specific conflicts without congressional approval.
“Politicians tend to like to evade responsibility for anything -- but then this gets you into forever wars,” Mansoor said.
Trump has used a series of legal arguments for his campaign against Maduro.
As he built up a naval force in the Caribbean and destroyed vessels that were allegedly carrying drugs from Venezuela, the Trump administration tapped wartime powers under the global war on terror by designating drug cartels as terrorist organizations.
The administration has claimed the capture of Maduro himself was actually a law enforcement operation, essentially to extradite the Venezuelan president to stand trial for charges in the U.S. that were filed in 2020.
In a classified briefing Tuesday, senators reviewed the Trump administration's still undisclosed legal opinion for using the military for the operation. It was described as a lengthy document.
But lawmakers, including a significant number of Republicans, have been alarmed by Trump's recent foreign policy talk. In recent weeks, he has pledged that the U.S. will “run” Venezuela for years to come, threatened military action to take possession of Greenland and told Iranians protesting their government that “ help is on its way.”
Senior Republicans have tried to massage the relationship between Trump and Denmark, a NATO ally that holds Greenland as a semi-autonomous territory. But Danish officials emerged from a meeting with Vice President JD Vance and Rubio Wednesday saying a “fundamental disagreement” over Greenland remains.
Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer said Trump's recent aggression amounted to a “dangerous drift towards endless war.”
More than half of U.S. adults believe President Donald Trump has “gone too far” in using the U.S. military to intervene in other countries, according to a new AP-NORC poll.
House Democrats have also filed a similar war powers resolution and can force a vote on it as soon as next week.
Associated Press writers Lisa Mascaro and Joey Cappelletti in Washington and Bill Barrow in Atlanta contributed to this report.
President Donald Trump speaks during a meeting with oil executives in the East Room of the White House, Friday, Jan. 9, 2026, in Washington. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci)
Sen. Josh Hawley, R-Mo., talks with reporters outside the Senate chamber during a vote at the Capitol, Tuesday, Jan. 6, 2026, in Washington. (AP Photo/Rod Lamkey, Jr.)
Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., speaks with reporters at the Senate Subway on Capitol Hill, Thursday, Jan. 8, 2026, in Washington. (AP Photo/Mariam Zuhaib)
Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., speaks during a news conference at the Capitol, Tuesday, Jan. 13, 2026, in Washington. (AP Photo/Rod Lamkey, Jr.)
