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As one of the few NFL executives ever to consummate even one three-team deal in a career, let alone two during a recent four-month stretch, Atlanta Falcons president and general manager Rich McKay might not be the best man from whom to seek an opinion on whether trades have gotten easier in the league over the last few years.

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With the assistance of senior personnel executive Billy Devaney, who did much of the legwork, McKay has acquired for the Falcons defensive end John Abraham and wide receiver Ashley Lelie. But he and Devaney had to go through permutations, machinations, complications, frustrations and, yeah, even triangulations to finally pull together all the myriad elements of both deals.

Three-team trades, after all, are more commonplace in basketball.

Even so, following days of frenetic negotiations on the Lelie acquisition, McKay said Thursday that the NFL trade market is more open for business now than in the past several years. Thanks to changes in the collective bargaining agreement and the nearly 20 percent increase in the salary cap for 2006, it is easier to make trades that otherwise might not have been consummated.

"Because of the nature of our game," McKay said, "we're never going to be a big trading league. But the changes have created a climate where, if you want to get something done, you have a better chance now."

With the salary cap set at a record $102 million for 2006, and slated to rise to $109 million next season as a result of the extension to the collective bargaining agreement in March, most franchises now have ample room to assume veteran contracts they might not have been able to inherit in the past. The other critical alteration in the CBA that has affected the trade market deals with the so-called "acceleration" in salary-cap costs. Instead of rolling prorated segments of signing bonus forward into the current season, and in some cases incurring prohibitive costs, the change allows teams to delay some of the impact on their salary cap (similar to what teams can do with post-June 1 player releases).

But even before those changes, trading in the NFL -- which had become a seemingly abandoned mode of player acquisition -- was making a comeback of sorts. As McKay noted, the NFL will never be an art-of-the-deal league. But in the last three or four years, many franchises have managed their salary caps much more efficiently, as personnel men have finally assimilated all the nuances of a player-movement system implemented in 1993. Thus, there has been an upturn in trade activity involving veteran players (and not just draft choices).

The kinds of complex three-team swaps orchestrated by the Falcons this offseason -- it should be noted that Denver was a partner in both the triad trades -- still remain an aberration. But trading players, even in one-for-one transactions, is no longer a rarity. While many of the trades are of convenience, and involve lesser-known veterans, some of this season's deals have included big-time performers.

Twelve former first-round draft choices, a remarkably high number, have changed teams via trade since the end of the 2005 season. Still-productive performers -- such as quarterback Daunte Culpepper, wide receivers Javon Walker, Lelie, Brandon Lloyd and Eric Moulds, center Jeff Faine, Abraham and tailback Kevan Barlow -- are among the big names dealt to new teams.

It used to be that the only folks who got rich during the NFL's trade period were the long-distance phone companies, because there was always a lot more dialing than dealing. But in the last few offseasons, talking has turned increasingly into trading; the volume of deals including at least one starting-caliber player has increased by one-third since the 2003 offseason.

"As a league, we still do a lot more talking than trading," said one NFC personnel director. "But at least now, in the current [environment], when you pick up the phone, you know there's a shot you might be able to do some business."

When it comes to wheelin' and dealin', the NFL, compared to other professional leagues, still lags well behind. It's hard, though, to ignore the reality that there has been more body-swapping than in the past, when there existed a reluctance to deal that created an undeniable inertia.

The salary cap became a very convenient excuse behind which personnel men could hide; many front-office folks were simply too timid to complete a trade that might actually involve some risk-taking. The inertia was a source of constant frustration to inveterate dealers like former Green Bay general manager Ron Wolf.

It would be hyperbole to suggest that general managers have suddenly been collectively emboldened in the trade market, but at least some have cashed in their timidity for a dose of temerity.

Said Cleveland general manager Phil Savage, who has been forced to make two trades in the last three weeks to address the Browns' star-crossed center situation: "Teams are more open [to trades] now."

Coincidence or not, that has been especially the case at the wide receiver position, where at least 16 starting-caliber players have been traded in the last three offseasons. Veterans such as Terrell Owens, Keyshawn Johnson, Randy Moss, Moulds, Joey Galloway, Terry Glenn, Javon Walker and Lelie are among the wide receivers acquired in trades. But it isn't as if wideouts have monopolized the market.

Since 2003, there has been at least one Pro Bowl player traded in every one of the 11 position categories delineated by the collective bargaining agreement. But, even with the loosening of salary-cap restrictions, the NFL will remain a league in which chemistry and synergy limit trades. Arguably the consummate team sport, football dictates that a player fit the system, not just fit under the salary cap.

So don't expect league general managers anytime soon to become like their baseball counterparts.

"Trading for a right fielder," reminded McKay, "is still easier than trading for a right guard."

Len Pasquarelli is a senior NFL writer for ESPN.com. To check out Len's chat archive, click here .