New York traded center Chris Foote to the Jets on August 23,…
New York traded center Chris Foote to the Jets on August 23, 1983 for a conditional draft choice, but the transaction was effectively unwound six days later. The Jets waived Foote on August 29, which nullified the draft-pick obligation. Foote re-signed with the Giants on September 12 and played 11 games for New York that season. Because no pick transferred and Foote returned, the deal produced no lasting exchange of value.
New York Giants Received
- pick conditional draft pick (voided/not exercised when Jets released Chris Foote )
New York Jets Received
- player Chris Foote
Trade Analysis
This transaction is historically notable because it was attempted, recorded and then nullified rather than becoming a normal completed trade. The Giants' own retrospective on the 2019 Leonard Williams deal says New York traded center Chris Foote to the Jets on August 23, 1983 for a draft choice. The Jets released Foote six days later, which nullified the trade. NFL's August 1983 transaction ledger independently records Foote moving from the Giants to the Jets on August 23 and then being waived by the Jets on August 29. Pro Sports Transactions describes the promised compensation as a conditional draft pick that was not exercised.
The Giants therefore never received a draft selection from the deal. The legacy row's description of a conditional pick was directionally correct, but the extra undisclosed-consideration placeholders are unsupported and unnecessary. The accurate asset record is a conditional draft choice whose obligation disappeared when the Jets released Foote. There is no downstream selection to trace because the pick never transferred.
The Jets also received no regular-season production from Foote. Contemporary transaction reporting shows the Jets cutting him during the final August roster reduction. The Giants' official account says he re-signed with New York on September 12. NFL career statistics then list Foote in 11 games for the Giants in 1983, with no Jets regular-season appearance that year. His later NFL career with Minnesota is unrelated to this transaction and is not assigned to either side's 1983 trade return.
The unusual sequence means the post-trade team value is effectively zero on both sides. New York temporarily gave up Foote but got him back before he played elsewhere and did not receive the promised conditional pick. The Jets temporarily held his rights but cut him before the regular season and never owed the draft compensation. The transaction still appears in official trade histories, but Giants executives later described it as voided and contrasted it with the 2019 Leonard Williams deal as the first Giants-Jets trade that actually stuck.
For TradeVerdicts purposes, the correct outcome is Even Trade with C grades rather than inventing a winner from a deal that unwound before either side realized trade value. The important correction is factual: remove the duplicate undisclosed placeholders, label the pick as voided/not exercised, and explain that Foote returned to the Giants and played 11 games for them after the trade was nullified.