Copyright yardbarker
Following the 2025 NFL Trade Deadline's conclusion, Titans GM Mike Borgonzi met with media to discuss the state of his roster for over a half hour on Wednesday. His office ended up making three in-season trades this year, and staying quiet on deadline day itself. This came as a surprise to many who expected (or at least hoped) they would be more involved as sellers to build up draft capital for the future. Based on many conversations I've had this week, my understanding is that the Titans were willing participants at the deadline but simply weren't receiving offers they could take with a straight face. Turns out, aside from the players who were moved and Jeffery Simmons (who most of the league called on, all of them receiving the same answer), this Titans roster just wasn't that valuable on this year's market. Anybody who has watched the Titans this year surely understands that, deep down. But Borgonzi did facilitate three moves for an upgraded standing in next year's draft, and he took us behind the scenes on each of the moves on Wednesday in as much detail as he could share. Here's how he explained his moves: Jarvis Brownlee Jr traded to the Jets Before any of us in that room had a chance to ask about the first and most confusing trade Borgonzi made this year, he acknowledged the elephant that's been in the room for well over a month now. “I know the first trade we made with Jarvis Brownlee was—as I'm aware—it was controversial around here because he's a young player that was ascending," Borgonzi said. " You're evaluating the fit, and without getting into a lot of details, I like Jarvis and I think he's going to be a really good player in this league. We don't have the culture right now sometimes to help guys develop right now. We thought at the time, just some of the habits weren't conducive to building the culture right now.” I wrote a standalone piece on this conclusion to the Brownlee discussion, but needless to say, this was the most insight into the trade we've gotten yet. Borgonzi addressed some follow-up questions on the subject that are quoted and broken down in that piece. Bottom line: the Titans lost the trade, but they know they lost the trade. It was a calculated loss for the sake of this rebuild. Whether they were right to feel the need to take that loss is up to interpretation. Roger McCreary traded to the Rams The Titans' second trade of the year was for another of their starting cornerbacks, but this one is a lot more straightforward of an explanation. “The Roger McCreary trade. Roger—love Roger," Borgonzi began. "Teammates loved him, you could tell they loved him. Roger's a good player. It's part of the strategy when you're looking at the roster and evaluating the market in terms of, he's in an expiring contract and what's it going to look like next year. And that's the piece when you draft and develop players too, that you have guys coming in here. It had nothing to do with because I didn't draft Roger. It has nothing to deal with that.” I believe what he means here is that he was not moving McCreary simply because he wasn't his guy, which is perfectly believable. But the reality is that, in a roundabout way, regime change is what victimized Roger and victimizes talented young players like him all the time. It's a natural consequence of change at the top, and of there being more than one way to skin a cat in this league. Preferences and fits differ. I wrote about this phenomenon in more detail here. Borgonzi stated that this was merely a value proposition for him. “We found there was some interest with Roger, and it happened to be the Rams who had owned our fifth round pick from a prior trade. And so, we thought that was good value for us.” Yes, it was a value proposition, because somebody was willing to offer a real upgrade on a player you didn't intend on bringing back. With that in mind, this was a good trade. Dre’Mont Jones traded to the Ravens The final trade the Titans made was on the eve of the deadline, moving EDGE Dre'Mont Jones to the pass rush-needy Ravens for a conditional 5th round pick. I gave this the best grade of the deadline, because it's a real nice piece of business from Borgonzi who explained the move in this way: “Dre'Mont Jones, love Dre'Mont. He was really coming on here the last four or five games. And I think that's why a lot of teams had called on him. And we weren't looking to move on from Dre'Mont right now, but we also have to think about the future of this program and where we're at. We had a chance to acquire a pick from Baltimore that could be a high pick in the fifth and potentially could turn into a fourth-round pick.” Sounds like the Titans had a great offer fall into their lap from a desperate team, and they were happy to take it. The light conditions, which are broken down in detail here, are the most impressive part of this trade. But it led to Borgonzi uttering these repulsive words Titans fans don't want to here: “Let's hope the Ravens go to the playoffs and Dre'Mont has two more sacks and we get a fourth-round pick out of it.”
