Winners and Losers from Steelers-Dolphins trade: 2 star defensive backs get new start

The Miami Dolphins wanted to trade Jalen Ramsey and Jonnu Smith this offseason, with both wanting a new start and more money. They found a team that was willing to take both players.

The Dolphins and Pittsburgh Steelers pulled off a trade you don’t see often in the NFL, with a trio of older but still productive veterans switching teams without much draft capital involved. The Steelers got Ramsey and Smith, along with a 2027 seventh-round pick, in exchange for safety Minkah Fitzpatrick and a 2027 fifth-round pick.

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Here are the winners and losers from an interesting trade:

WINNERS

Jalen Ramsey: Ramsey and the Dolphins wanted a breakup, and it took a while to find a trade partner. Trade speculation with Ramsey started before the draft, and more than two months later Ramsey was still on the Dolphins’ roster.

Finally, Ramsey gets his new start. And somehow, even though Ramsey will turn 31 years old in October, he reportedly finagled a raise of $1.5 million, bringing his total for 2025 to $26.6 million.

Ramsey should still have value for a Steelers team that already had options at cornerback. They can get creative with him around the line of scrimmage (think Charles Woodson late in his time with the Packers) and perhaps extend his prime a bit. And Ramsey will even get a little more money out of it.

Arthur Smith: When Smith was the Atlanta Falcons head coach, he was criticized for underutilizing and sometimes ignoring his best skill-position players. He was never accused of not using Jonnu Smith enough.

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The Steelers chasing Jonnu Smith when they didn’t need a tight end seems to be a case of Arthur Smith, the Steelers’ offensive coordinator, standing on the table for him. Arthur Smith, who also coached Jonnu Smith when he was on the Tennessee Titans’ staff, obviously loves Jonnu Smith’s skill set. He used him plenty in Atlanta and now that Jonnu Smith is coming off a career year with the Dolphins, he’ll get plenty of work in Arthur Smith’s offense. As long as Arthur Smith is coaching in the NFL, he’ll be trying to acquire Jonnu Smith and give him a prominent place on his depth chart.

Tight ends looking for a new home: There are some tight ends around the NFL who were speculated as possible trade targets for new teams, like Kyle Pitts, Michael Mayer and Tyler Higbee. Now there’s a team with a sudden and desperate need at tight end.

The Dolphins traded Jonnu Smith, who led the team with 88 receptions last season. He wanted more money, and Miami clearly didn’t want to pay him. But trading him leaves a huge hole on the depth chart. Pharaoh Brown, who has 72 catches in seven NFL seasons, might be the temporary starter. It seems hard to believe the Dolphins traded Smith without some backup plan in the works. It could be a new start for someone like Mayer, who was a second-round pick of the Raiders two years ago but is now buried by 2024 first-round pick Brock Bowers.

LOSERS

Pat Freiermuth: The Steelers need receivers. And maybe Jonnu Smith will end up being a move tight end in the Steelers’ offense, deployed more like a big slot receiver than a traditional in-line tight end. But it’s not like the Steelers were weak at tight end.

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Freiermuth has been steady for the Steelers at tight end. He had 653 yards and seven touchdowns last season. Nobody looked at the Steelers’ depth chart and thought that was a position of need. But the Steelers were the only team linked to Jonnu Smith when trade speculation surrounding him started, and Steelers offensive coordinator Arthur Smith ended up getting his guy. Jonnu Smith will likely have a prominent role, given Arthur Smith’s love for him, which can’t be great for Freiermuth. The bigger question is whether both tight ends can find a role in the offense together.

Mike McDaniel: The Steelers seem oddly all-in on this season, with an older roster led by old quarterback Aaron Rodgers in what will likely be his last season. But Mike Tomlin never really seems to be on the hot seat, no matter how much Steelers fans want to put him there. Let’s assume he has job security regardless of how Pittsburgh’s season turns out.

McDaniel does not have Tomlin-level security. The Dolphins seem to be in a downturn after last season. McDaniel can’t feel all that comfortable, especially if Miami takes another step back this season. And the Dolphins just traded two players who were among their five biggest contributors last season. Maybe Minkah Fitzpatrick is so good that he lifts the Dolphins up and leads an improvement from last season, then McDaniel feels more comfortable about his future afterward. But that doesn’t seem likely.

Both teams: When there’s a big trade like Monday, you assume at least one team got itself closer to feeling like a contender, whether it’s for a Super Bowl or even a division title.

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Do the Steelers or Dolphins really seem that much better after the deal?

The Steelers got a new tight end, when it wasn’t a huge need and doesn’t fix their receiver depth. They did get a star defensive back in Jalen Ramsey, but gave up a younger star defensive back to get him (the trade surely looked better to Pittsburgh fans in the two or so minutes before it was reported that the Steelers had traded away Minkah Fitzpatrick to get Ramsey). The Dolphins can be happy to land Fitzpatrick, but they gave up two of their best players from last season to do so. Jonnu Smith, somewhat strangely, became the focal point of the passing game over the second half of last season and the Dolphins don’t (yet) have a good replacement for him.

So the Steelers don’t get a player who truly moves the needle from what they had at those spots before, and the Dolphins traded two huge contributors from last season to get a safety who will be 29 this season, which isn’t young in NFL years. Both teams had reasons to move on from the players they traded, and perhaps getting that done was a win in itself. But it’s hard to say either team is much better on paper.