The second season each year starts after the real one finishes, where new hope is given to clubs. The shadow season is the AFL player movement period, where teams get players and picks off-field to do battle on it.
Last year's trade period was devoid of big names and the quietest in at least a decade. This year's went off with a bang.
For the first time ever, the first three draft picks were traded across the period. The most recent number one pick was also traded, alongside a former Brownlow medallist, multiple former All Australians, premiership winners and other top level players to boot.
This off-season might truly shape the future of the league.
All up, 32 trades and free agency signings were made involving 34 players — a team-and-a-half's worth of players. Every club was substantively involved and brought in at least one player.
At the same time, clubs seemed reluctant to accept draft picks in the later parts of this draft, with recruiters unsure about the makeup of this class.
It will take years, maybe decades, for the true winners to be revealed from this massive off-season but using methods developed by the ABC we can look at who seems to be ahead after the last deal has been done.
The megatrade
Often there's a fair bit of hyperbole in AFL circles around what happens off the field in the "industry". Everything seems to get exaggerated just a little bit, spoken in excited tones.
No theatrics are required to talk about the scale of the biggest trade of 2022. The "megatrade" — the biggest trade in AFL history by almost any measure — involved four clubs, two players and 14 draft picks.
ABC Sport has analysed every trade since 1988, and the 2022 megatrade stands alone.
The headline piece was pick one going to GWS from North Melbourne — the first time it had been traded in more than two decades. Picks two and three were also involved in the trade for good measure.
GWS moved up to the number one draft slot from the third choice and are likely to target dynamic key forward Aaron Cadman in the draft — filling a real need for the club.
The Kangaroos — desperately short of talent across the park — increased the number of chances they had to fill those holes.
West Coast thought similarly, trading from the second pick down to the eighth and 12th selections. That's also around where the West Australian talent is expected to come off the board in the draft.
Port Adelaide gambled on the future value of two known products — 2021 number one draft pick Jason Horne-Francis and former West Coast premiership player Junior Rioli. Both come to Alberton with some questions.
Horne-Francis had a very disrupted first year at North on and off the field, struggling to meet some very high expectations. Meanwhile, Rioli played his first games of AFL football this year since 2019 after serving a long doping suspension.
Port are gambling that they are buying low on both players.
Just 12 months ago every club in the land wanted Horne-Francis, and Rioli's best footy is utterly spellbinding. On paper, Port gave up the most in this deal. But sometimes you have to risk a lot to reap any rewards.
If their gamble pays off, they could be on the short track to September success this season or next. If it doesn't, they could be set for a mini-rebuild in the coming years.
The big winner
The biggest winner of the trade period, both immediately and in the long term, looks to be the side that just won the flag. It's often hard for successful sides to maintain their talent levels, but the Cats have just managed to add to a very strong team.
Their biggest move was to trade their 2023 third-round draft pick for former Sun Jack Bowes and pick seven in the 2022 draft.
Bowes was a former top 10 draft pick for the Gold Coast and has been good in the past, but the real prize is the seventh draft pick in this year's draft. That's right near where talent evaluators consider the talent to fall away in this draft.
Gold Coast were willing to move on from the high pick because they are shaping to take one pick into the draft — the fifth pick received for trading Izak Rankine to Adelaide.
Gold Coast instead loaded up on future picks, looking to stockpile draft points to make sure potential 2023 top five draft pick Jed Walter finds his way to Carrara.
Geelong also managed to pick up young ex-Collingwood forward Ollie Henry and former Giant midfielder Tanner Bruhn.
Despite losing club legend Joel Selwood, the Cats look to have shored up their depth for another run (or two) at the premiership.
Recent premiers Richmond also made a big move in the short term, adding an instant midfield brigade in former Giants Jacob Hopper and Tim Taranto to immediately fortify the Tigers' biggest weakness.
Losing preliminary finalists Collingwood and Brisbane also pulled the trigger on several moves to help their clubs in the short term at the expense of longer-term assets.
The battle to the top of the league only looks to have gotten tougher.
The most valuable players to move
Among the plethora of highly credentialed players that have found their way to new clubs, it's a slightly surprising name that stands as the player most likely to be the most influential in 2023.
The secret to Karl Amon's game is doing the little things right — making sure his positioning is there, and he's always there as a link for his teammates.
Coming off a season where he earned 15 Brownlow votes, Amon joins a Hawthorn side firmly entering the rebuilding phase after losing a number of veterans this year.
That exodus includes former Brownlow Medal winner Tom Mitchell and midfield gun Jaeger O'Meara, who found their way to Collingwood and Fremantle respectively, where they'll look to have an immediate impact.
After years of having one of the oldest lists in the league, the Hawks look likely to have the youngest and least experienced team in the league in 2023.
In the longer term, former Melbourne premiership ruck Luke Jackson and Horne-Francis shape as the most likely to be stars from this trade period.
Jackson is the former AFL Rising Star, and has been described as a "unicorn" in the league. The freshly-minted Docker has the size of a key position player but the mobility of someone far smaller.
Those few players are far from the only potential and current stars to find new homes, in a rare trade period to live up to the hype.
