Once rare, several trades have gone down on the first day of the NFL league calendar.

Green Bay Packers DT Corey Williams, the team’s franchise player, was traded to Cleveland for a second round draft pick. The move takes the Browns at least temporarily out of the first day of the 2008 NFL Draft. Williams has 14 sacks over the last two seasons and had priced himself out of the Packers budget with his play. This is an interesting move for the Browns. Certainly they needed to do something about their 30th ranked defense. And Williams is a quality player, having started 20 games and notched 14 sacks over the last two seasons. I like him better in a 4-3 defense. While he’s 6-4, 313 pounds, I’m not 100 percent sold on him being the space-clogging, double-team eating nose tackle a team needs in the 3-4 defense. But an improving Browns team is doing a nice job of collecting young, talented players and they did snag one of the top defensive linemen available on the market.

Another move that could pay dividends is the New York Jets acquisition of DT Kris Jenkins from Carolina for a couple of mid-round picks. This move makes sense as the Jets switched to a 3-4 defense and Dewayne Robertson isn’t really big enough to play the fat-boy-in-the-middle role. The question is health. If Jenkins stays healthy the Jets will have worked out a steal that should improve their sieve-like run defense.

The biggest deals so far involve teams keeping their own players. Reports put the deal DL Tommy Kelly signed at $50 million over seven years with more than $18 million upfront. While Kelly has been solid he’s also been injury prone. He’s coming off of a torn ACL. And it’s questionable to me why he is worthy of being the highest paid DT in league history.