- The Tennessee Titans are in need of a quarterback but are waiting to see how the market unfolds before making any major moves.
- Titans general manager Mike Borgonzi and president of football operations Chad Brinker are weighing their options, which include signing a veteran free agent, trading for a veteran or drafting a rookie.
- The Titans are not rushing into a decision and are willing to be patient as they search for their next franchise quarterback.
INDIANAPOLIS ― The mad scramble is underway.
The Los Angeles Rams announced Friday that they’ll be restructuring the contract of quarterback Matthew Stafford to keep him in Inglewood for 2025. After a monthlong dalliance with quarterback-needy teams in New York and Las Vegas, Stafford won’t be changing teams after all.
The ensuing moments involved a flurry of face-saving reports. First, ESPN’s Adam Schefter reported the New York Giants are “investigating all veteran quarterback options,” including future Hall of Famer Aaron Rodgers. Then Schefter reported the Las Vegas Raiders are “expected to investigate” Russell Wilson, Justin Fields and Sam Darnold, among others. NFL Network’s Tom Pelissero chimed in minutes later during a stint on “The Rich Eisen Show” about the possibility the Minnesota Vikings can franchise tag Darnold to bring him back for 2025 or look for a trade partner rather than letting him walk free.
And, oh yeah, Miami’s Cam Ward and Colorado’s Shedeur Sanders took to the podium Friday morning from the NFL combine to make their cases to the media as to why they should be NFL starting quarterbacks. While those interviews were ongoing, Titans president of football operations Chad Brinker was talking to The Tennessean about how the team won’t be able to make its quarterback decision until more dominoes fall.
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“I think we have to see what happens before we can move forward,” Brinker said. “The approach that we’re going to take is going to be a little bit more of a disciplined approach and a little bit more patience. We’re going to try to make the right decisions for the Titans and not to panic and be frivolous in the free agent market. But at the same time we understand what we are as a football team.”
What the Titans are as a football team is one that needs help just about everywhere. Most strikingly and most importantly, the Titans need a quarterback. Maybe two quarterbacks. Veteran, rookie, whatever. They need to rise from the muck of passing mediocrity they’ve been mired in the past three seasons.
Say Rodgers goes to the Giants, Darnold sticks in Minnesota and Wilson and Fields split between Pittsburgh and Las Vegas. Now you’ve got Stafford staying in Los Angeles and Derek Carr staying in New Orleans. Atlanta doesn’t seem to be in any rush to release Kirk Cousins. That veteran talent pool is shrinking by the day.
What the heck: Bring on the youngsters.
“I know nothing can faze me,” Sanders said. “No pressure, no situation. These cameras, nothing fazed me. I grew up with it.”
“I am willing to do anything it takes to win a football game, whether it’s be a gunslinger all day, or have to hand the ball off a couple of times,” Ward said. “At the end of the day, I know the type of player I am. The teams should know the type of player they are getting in me.”
Not since Eli Manning in 2004 has there been a top quarterback prospect who grew up in the shadow of football royalty as Sanders did. And not since Josh Allen in 2017 has a former zero-star high school recruit developed into a first-round quarterback talent as Ward has. These aren’t run-of-the-mill No. 1 quarterback prospects, and they’re selling their strengths based on that.
Yet ― unlike outside linebacker Abdul Carter and cornerback/receiver Travis Hunter, top prospects who said they’d love for the Titans to pick them first overall ― Sanders and Ward both said the status of being picked No. 1 doesn’t particularly matter to them. That’s not to say they don’t want to be Titans; Ward said he believes he’d be a plug-and-play starter for the Titans because of the similarities between coach Brian Callahan’s scheme and the one he thrived in at Miami.
But it’s hard to deny the intrigue of how noncommittal the Titans are about this entire quarterback market. Brinker wants to play wait-and-see in the free agent market instead of knocking over the first domino himself. He and general manager Mike Borgonzi are hearing out conversations and fielding hypothetical trade offers for the No. 1 pick. They don’t want to spend exorbitantly in free agency for stopgap solutions. They don’t want to trade premium draft picks for veterans. And they aren’t 100% convinced of the most convenient solution: just picking a rookie quarterback and building from there.
Those, of course, are the three most common ways teams find quarterbacks.
The mad scramble is underway, but these Titans don’t seem to be scrambling at all.
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Nick Suss is the Titans beat writer for The Tennessean. Contact Nick at [email protected]. Follow Nick on X, the platform formerly called Twitter, @nicksuss.
