DeForest Buckner Trade: Colts Are Actively Shopping the Pro Bowl Tackle After Trading Quenton Nelson to Seattle
Indianapolis traded eight-time Pro Bowl guard Quenton Nelson to the Seahawks on Tuesday, and multiple reports say defensive tackle DeForest Buckner is being actively shopped next — with his former team, the 49ers, named as the club to watch before the November 10 deadline.
The Indianapolis Colts are actively shopping defensive tackle DeForest Buckner ahead of the NFL trade deadline, according to a report Tuesday by insider Jordan Schultz carried by Pro Football Rumors — a development that put Buckner's name at the top of the U.S. trending searches on Google on this run's CyberKendra listing. The report landed hours after Indianapolis traded guard Quenton Nelson to the Seattle Seahawks.
Nelson, who went to eight Pro Bowls in eight seasons, was sent to Seattle for a 2027 third-round pick and a 2028 fifth-round pick, according to Athlon Sports' account of the deal. Indianapolis is 2-5 after Sunday's 16-10 loss to Minnesota, and the club fired general manager Chris Ballard the previous week, per the reports — the context for a veteran sell-off two weeks before the deadline, which falls at 4 p.m. Eastern on Tuesday, November 10.
Buckner's contract is the mechanics of his market. He is in a contract year on a two-year, $46 million deal tied to a $13 million base salary, Pro Football Rumors notes, and an acquiring team in deadline week would owe him less than $7 million of it; Indianapolis could also pay down salary to improve the return. On the field he has four sacks, eight quarterback hits and three pass batdowns this season, and 47 sacks as a Colt, with Pro Bowl selections in 2021 and 2023 and a first-team All-Pro season in his first year in Indianapolis — though missed games (five in 2024, seven last season) will weigh on his value, per the same report.
The named team to watch is his first one. ESPN's Adam Schefter and Ian Rapoport have identified the San Francisco 49ers — who drafted Buckner in 2016 and traded him to Indianapolis in 2020 — as a club that could explore a reunion, according to the reports, and Schultz wrote that the league-wide expectation is San Francisco will respond after Seattle's Nelson move. No Buckner deal has been completed; what the reports establish is that he is available, the deadline is November 10, and the 49ers are the first name attached.
