PHOENIX - There are 32 NFL outposts, 32 places with championship desires and needs, 32 teams usually looking for what they don't have.

And, yet, when it's time to connect the dots in a trade, no two teams have put pen to contract more with each other in recent seasons than the Broncos and Washington Redskins.

Draft picks, Pro Bowl players, two-team trades, three-team trades, trades for now and trades for later; no matter. In a league that hasn't always embraced change through trades, the Broncos and Redskins routinely have tossed aside the fear factor and gotten down to business.

"I'd say people around here look at us and say, 'These guys will make a deal,' " Redskins coach Joe Gibbs said. "You know what I mean? Our owner (Daniel Snyder) is willing to do things. Some teams are real hesitant.

"It just seems like with Denver, we've had a kind of a feeling there that they'll do a deal."

They've done deals, all right. Since March 2004, the Redskins and the Broncos have, in three separate deals, swapped the likes of running back Clinton Portis for standout cornerback Champ Bailey, exchanged first- round picks and been part of a three-way trade that sent then- Broncos wide receiver Ashley Lelie to Atlanta and then-Falcons running T.J. Duckett to Washington.

Earlier this month, both teams were pursuing cornerback Dré Bly in, yes, a trade with the Detroit Lions.

The Redskins believed they had in place the framework of a long-term deal with Bly when the Broncos swooped in to snare him by sending tackle George Foster and running back Tatum Bell to the Lions.

The Redskins still wanted Bly enough, many in the league said, that they offered the Broncos cornerback Shawn Springs in exchange; the Broncos, though wanting to keep Bly, made noise about acquiring the Redskins' No. 6 overall pick in the draft this April. This time, each side said no to the other, but they still are willing to keep the wheel spinning.

"I always say, 'Anything to improve your team," Gibbs said. "For me, it's any way to get a player. That's the issue - any way to get a player. Free agency, trades are more expensive than the draft, but you ought to make fewer mistakes."

Broncos coach Mike Shanahan said one of the reasons more trades aren't made is the short- term nature of the profession. With the almost constant turnover around the league, most general managers and head coaches don't feel secure enough in their jobs to make a deal.

"And I think some of it is, when you have a little bit of security, you're not afraid to make decisions," Shanahan said. "You kind of go with your gut, you do what gives you the best chance to win. I think some people are afraid about what people say outside the organization, out in the community, but a lot of people have reservations about that.

"A lot of people are concerned with what people are saying rather than what gives them the best chance to improve their team."

And few in the league are more secure than the men operating the Broncos and Redskins.

At his desk since 1995, Shanahan is the second-longest-tenured coach in the league in his current job - Tennessee Titans coach Jeff Fisher has had greater longevity, having taken over with six games remaining in the 1994 season - and Gibbs already was in the Pro Football Hall of Fame as a three-time Super Bowl winner when he returned for his second stint with the Redskins.

Shanahan has complete power in the team's football operations - Broncos owner Pat Bowlen simply called it "Mike's department" when discussing this week the team's offseason changes. Gibbs also has that kind of power, as well as one of the NFL's more deep-pocketed owners in Snyder, willing to freely spend that cash on the football team.

"I think (Shanahan) might be a lot more secure right now; I'm hanging on by these," Gibbs joked as he gripped the edge of a table with his fingernails. "I think it's kind of a mind-set; some teams are more aggressive than others."

But Gibbs, too, says a big factor in teams being willing to make a trade is dealing with public criticism if a deal does not work out; that some teams simply decide it's not worth the aggravation to make a deal unless it is so lopsided, they wouldn't be able to make it in the first place.

Gibbs talked about the day he told his wife he wanted to return to coaching after an 11-year absence.

"She said, 'You'll ruin your good name.' Then, after this year (a 5-11 finish), I said, 'Well, we're halfway there.' . . . Sometimes you're there to get kicked around; it's part of life. It depends how many games you win, whether it's right or wrong. Right now, we're on the wrong end of it."

"But you talk to everybody," Shanahan said. "There are always deals out there. Everybody talks a deal this time of year, but most of them never go anywhere.

We've just been able to get all the way to the other end with them. It takes two, and we've been the two a few times, I guess."

Do the deal

The Broncos and Redskins have been involved in three major trades with each other since early 2004:

• In March 2004, the Broncos traded running back Clinton Portis to the Redskins for cornerback Champ Bailey and a second-round pick. The second-round pick became running back Tatum Bell in the draft that April.

• In April 2005, Denver traded the 25th pick of the draft to Washington for the Redskins' third-round pick in '05 and first- and fourth-round picks in '06. The Broncos later traded what became the 22nd pick of the '06 draft to San Francisco to move up and select Jay Cutler at No. 11 in the '06 draft and used the fourth-round pick to select wide receiver Brandon Marshall.

• In August '06, the Broncos, Redskins and Falcons were part of a three-way trade that sent Denver wide receiver Ashley Lelie to the Falcons, Atlanta running back T. J. Duckett to the Redskins and two Redskins draft picks - a third-rounder this April and a fourth-rounder in '08 - to the Broncos.

legwoldj@RockyMountainNews.com or 303-954-2359

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