PITTSBURGH — Unlike Major League Baseball and the National Hockey League, which has a history of trading players the way most people change socks, the NFL has never been heavily involved in making in-season deals. That includes the Steelers, who have rarely made a practice of acquiring players once the regular season begins.

That's why their acquisition of two players in the hours before the league's trade deadline was something that hasn't occurred very much in the past 32 years.

When the Steelers traded for wide receiver Mike Williams and outside linebacker Preston Smith on Tuesday, it was only the fifth time since Bill Cowher became coach in 1992 they acquired players after the start of the season. It was also the latest they acquired players during the season.

The other four were tackle Levi Brown (Oct. 2, 2013), tight end Nick Vannett (Sept. 25, 2019), safety Minkah Fitzpatrick (Sept. 16, 2019) and linebacker Avery Williamson (Nov. 2, 2020).

But, like a lot of things that have changed since Omar Khan became general manager, the Steelers went shopping on deadline day as though it were Black Friday.

They made two of the nine deals that transpired Tuesday — 10 if you count the trade made by the Arizona Cardinals to acquire linebacker Baron Browning a day earlier.

That eclipsed the number of trades made within 24 hours of the deadline in 2023, when eight players swapped teams. All told, since the start of the 2024 season, 18 trades involving 19 players have been made.

Not surprisingly, wide receivers were the hot commodity. Williams, who was acquired for a fifth-round pick in 2025, was one of six who were acquired in trades, joining Amari Cooper (Bills), Davante Adams (Jets), DeAndre Hopkins (Chiefs), former Steeler Diontae Johnson (Ravens) and Jonathan Mingo (Cowboys).

Compare that to 2015 when just one player was traded within a week of the deadline. So, even though the NFL still pales compared to baseball and hockey when it comes to in-season wheeling and dealing, the recent surge in the past three years is an indication the norm is changing.

With the expansion of the salary cap and the aggressive nature of some of the league's new and young general managers (which includes Khan), teams have been more willing to make moves before the deadline. Even the Cincinnati Bengals, who had acquired just two players in midseason trades in 52 years, made a move when they traded for running back Khalil Herbert from the Chicago Bears.

The activity began to increase in 2012 when the league pushed the trade deadline back from after Week 6 to the Tuesday following Week 8. This year, however, acting on a proposal put forth by the Steelers, the league pushed the deadline back a week, so it would occur at the halfway mark of the 17-game schedule.

Eight teams took advantage before the buzzer, including the Steelers, who have been in the market for a wide receiver since March. They have flirted with everyone from San Francisco's Brandon Aiyuk to Jacksonville's Christian Kirk, whose season-ending injury two weeks ago prevented him from joining the Steelers.

Of course, nothing will probably ever come close to the most famous in-season trade in NFL history. That occurred on Oct. 13, 1989, when the Dallas Cowboys traded running back Herschel Walker to the Minnesota Vikings. In what was the largest trade in league history, the Cowboys traded Walker and four draft picks in exchange for five veteran players and eight draft picks, including three consecutive seasons of first- and second-round selections.

Even baseball's 17-player swap between the New York Yankees and Baltimore Orioles in 1954 can't top that.

Reading material

"The Pittsburgh Steelers: An Illustrated Timeline" is the latest of author Jim Wexell's books about the team he has covered for 30 years, a heavily researched publication that covers the history of the Steelers with old photos and easy-to-read vignettes about the players, coaches, big moments and personal touches.

The hard-cover, coffee table-style book, which begins with the ignominious early days of the franchise under the ownership of "The Chief," Art Rooney Sr., travels through the eras of Chuck Noll and Cowher before culminating with the present-day happenings of the Steelers under Mike Tomlin.

Included in those chapters are 250-word stories about some of the former players — Ernie Stautner, Joe Greene, Terry Bradshaw and Franco Harris, to name a few — but also modern-day heroes such as Troy Polamalu, Ben Roethlisberger, Hines Ward and Cam Heyward.

There are also vignettes devoted to so many other facets of the team's storied history, including the Immaculate Reception, the 1974 draft, the Terrible Towel jinx and, of course, "The Catch" — Santonio Holmes' incredible touchdown reception to win Super Bowl XLIII.

It's so easy to read it's as though you are thumbing through countless postcards you saved from your childhood.

This is Wexell's sixth book about the Steelers, and, based on the appearance, artwork and paper stock alone, it might be his best. It is available wherever books are sold.

(c)2024 the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.