As the winds of speculation continue to blow around what the Tennessee Titans will do in the 2023 NFL draft, one expert says he has not heard anything about the team trading up from No. 11 overall.
In a recent episode of the “Move the Sticks” podcast with Daniel Jeremiah and Bucky Brooks, the former said he was hearing from “people around the league” that the Titans are a team to “keep an eye on” for a trade up for a quarterback.
“Can I give you the team that I’ve been told to keep an eye on that’s exploring this and looking into this? Again, this is just people around the league who said do not sleep on numero 11, the Tennessee Titans,” he said. “The two teams to keep an eye on with the trade ups were the Raiders and the Titans.”
Some took that as some kind of inside information, but Jeremiah made it clear his nugget was just speculation from general managers he spoke to.
Just said they are doing their homework & due diligence. I think I used the word exploring. I was talking to a couple GM’s and they said don’t sleep on them moving up. That’s all.
— Daniel Jeremiah (@MoveTheSticks) April 3, 2023
Teams explore everything at this time of year, and “people around the league” connecting dots to the Titans trading up for a quarterback based on their current situation isn’t exactly out-of-the-box thinking.
When asked about Jeremiah’s nugget by Jim Wyatt of Titans Online, ESPN’s Todd McShay said he hasn’t heard anything about Tennessee potentially trading up.
“I haven’t heard anything on it to be honest with you,” McShay said. “It’s more speculation, seeing (Mike) Vrabel at three of the top pro days … and seeing the staff they sent and knowing that (Ryan) Tannehill and the cap number he has, one of the highest cap numbers of the quarterbacks.”
As McShay points out, any of the buzz about the Titans trading up to No. 3 is based on pure speculation birthed from the team’s current situation rather than an inside source.
“If they bring in Anthony Richardson or Will Levis, whether they’re trading up or staying at 11, what they can do for the rest of their roster if in 2024, that quarterback shows that he can be a solid starter for you and has upside and can continue to develop,” McShay said. “Now you have four years with him as the starter at no money … it frees up so much money to get better everywhere else. And I think that’s going to be a trend that we see more and more.
“And that’s why you keep hearing about teams like Tennessee and like Seattle, like Las Vegas … teams that have veterans they are paying too much for, looking to bring in a young quarterback and develop them on the back end for a year or two, and if you hit on even an average starter for a few years, you get so much better everywhere else that you still have a chance to make a deep playoff run like San Francisco has done.”
If Tennessee can land its guy under center in 2023, the team will be in a great position. Not only will the Titans have their young signal-caller on a rookie deal, they’ll also be loaded with cap space in 2024.
Tennessee no doubt needs a new franchise quarterback with Ryan Tannehill possibly on his way out in Nashville, but I don’t think the Titans will get desperate to the point where they trade up for Will Levis or Anthony Richardson.
We can talk about Richardson at No. 11 or a few spots higher than that if the trade price is reasonable, but Levis isn’t someone I’d consider at any point in Round 1.
Now, if C.J. Stroud or Bryce Young fall to No. 3, the Titans should be all in. However, even if that happens, the Titans have multiple teams that could be interested in taking a quarterback to jump, further stacking the deck against Tennessee moving up.
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