Tom Krasovic: NFL trade deadline hits different for receiver, GM, both from San Diego

Empowered by techno-wizardry, bosses within corporations soon may be able to know what their workers ate for breakfast, the blend of coffee they drank on work breaks and how it affected their output.

Or something like that.

George Orwell may not have been a fussbudget with an overactive imagination, the more we learn about the Digital Age’s ever-growing prowess. Tools can track a worker’s every keystroke and mouse movement and analyze his or her emails. The actions of delivery truck drivers, warehouse laborers and many others can be tracked and sifted, too.

The men who play in the NFL would have something to say to today’s workers about the encroaching techno-supervision.

Welcome to my world.

And, they might add, it’s not all scary.

NFL players have long performed under stadium cameras that empower every NFL team – not just one’s employer – to analyze their on-field movements in hyper-detail. With the brave new arrival of computer sensors placed in players’ shoulder pads, football data accumulation reached warp speed.

The League is always watching, players say, so they talk of “putting up film” not only for their team but also the other 31 NFL front offices and coaching staffs.

Actually, this reality can be liberating. And Tuesday, that was the case for a former San Diegan who’s in his fourth NFL season.

Speedster Rashid Shaheed was traded from the last-place New Orleans Saints (1-8) to the first-place Seattle Seahawks (6-2) just before the NFL trade deadline fell.

A graduate of Mt. Carmel High School in Rancho Penasquitos, where he was a track and football standout, the 27-year-old Shaheed can be thankful to the Saints for launching his career.

In 2022, after he’d gone undrafted out of Weber State in Utah due to a knee injury, the Saints outbid other NFL teams to sign the All-American returner and standout receiver.

The Saints sold Shaheed on opportunity, created by their subpar roster.

A human blur, Shaheed ran with it.

He won All-Pro honors as a returner and also blew by defenders as a receiver and running back. He scored 13 touchdowns in three-and-a-half seasons.

There were growing pains.

But, on balance, Shaheed supplied game-changing material to every NFL club.

Such as: running 21.7 mph on Oct. 5, within an 87-yard touchdown play off a long-ball reception. At the time, it was the fastest speed recorded on an offensive touchdown in this NFL season.

The Seahawks, who sent two mid-round draft picks to the Saints, may see Shaheed as similar to Percy Harvin.

Harvin could be a high-maintenance personality. But a computer sensor wasn’t needed to confirm his terrifying speed. Twelve years ago, his field-stretching threat and an 87-yard kickoff return for a touchdown assisted Seattle’s lone Super Bowl victory.

Shaheed, who’s in the final year of his contract, joins a Seahawks offense that’s fifth in points per game. Sam Darnold, mobile and strong-armed, is a top-15 quarterback. Jaxon Smith-Njigba leads the NFL in receiving yards.

The NFL trade deadline smiled on another former San Diegan in Darren Mougey, a former San Diego State receiver and quarterback who’s in his first year as the New York Jets’ general manager.

Mougey – pronounced MOO-jee – got an impressive return of three first-round draft picks, two of them in 2027, a second-round pick and two players for a pair of stars in cornerback Sauce Gardner and defensive tackle Quinnen Williams, traded to the Indianapolis Colts and Dallas Cowboys, respectively.

The Jets (1-7) now have a fan in Tom Craft.

The former Aztecs head coach recruited Mougey, now 40, out of Scottsdale, Ariz., and added him to a quarterback room that included current Minnesota Vikings head coach Kevin O’Connell and Jets rookie offensive coordinator Tanner Engstrand.

“Darren’s a great guy,” Craft said Tuesday. “If they draft the right people, it’ll be a home run for Mougey and the Jets.”

Craft was able to sign the 6-foot-5, agile Mougey as a quarterback only after reassuring the player and his mother he wouldn’t be moved to receiver. Mougey appeared at QB in several games under Craft, but when the coach moved on, incoming coach Chuck Long switched him to receiver. The multi-position experience, said Craft, helped prepare Mougey for an NFL scouting-and-GM career.

“I think,” Crafted added, chuckling, “I’m still in good graces with Darren’s mom.”

The Jets and their daffy owner, Woody Johnson, have a long history of dysfunction. However, the rookie GM, who worked under John Elway and George Paton with the Denver Broncos, showed Tuesday he’s not another Jets rube.