INDIANAPOLIS – As I left town here are three things I’ve heard about that I think you want to know…
TRADE VALUE: We’ve been talking for Almost two months about what sort of windfall the Titans could get in a trade back and we’re going to talk about it for nearly two more unless it unfolds before draft day.
Mike Borgonzi emphasized he does not see a scenario where the quality of the quarterbacks somehow devalues the No. 1 pick.
“Anytime you’re trading up to the No. 1 pick, you’re going to expect a big return,” he said. “So I think that’s our expectations.”
Fishing around I’ve come to believe the Titans are highly unlikely to move without getting a 2026 first round pick in the deal, though if the Browns were to come up one spot it’s hard to make that match work.
VIEWS OF LANDRY: Here’s a side-effect of the Titans being so bad in 2024 that I had not thought much about.
Friday morning, I found a window to sneak off to one of the best breakfast places in America, Café Patachou. After downing my eggs I headed out and in quick succession ran into two NFL friends who were on their way to meet people. One is a personnel man, one is an assistant coach. In hurried hellos I asked them if they thought Harold Landry had any trade value given his contract situation.
Both said they hadn’t seen him to know.
One of their teams played the Titans last year, one did not.
But they know the league pretty broadly and have a sense of plenty of guys. Like a lot of people not in their roles, they didn’t spend a lot of time on a three-win team without many noteworthy guys heading toward free agency.
A third guy I talked to said he needed to look at Landry, as his team is among his preferred destinations, to get up to date on him. But he didn’t expect anyone to deal for him. He expects he will be cut.
The Titans, too, aren’t expecting a deal to come to fruition, as a wrote here. If they don’t trade him, there is hardly a ticking clock on resolving things. None of the $17.5 million in base salary they’d like to avoid paying him is due until the season. I’m sure they’d like to do right by him, but other matters are priorities.
MIKE KEITH’S REPLACEMENT: I had referred to a post on some industry job board that listed some prerequisites for Mike Keith’s replacement as the Titans Radio’s play-by-play man. He certainly was more than that for them.
I learned that post, which said candidates need to meet one of three criteria – prior NFL play-by-play experience, at least three years of NCAA D-1 play-by-play experience (not on college radio) or TV network college football play-by-play experience – did not come from the team and that those are not parameters that have been set forth by the Titans publicly.
That means some guys I presumed were out of the mix aren’t necessarily so, though I have no idea if the team will consider Jonathan Hutton or Kevin Ingram. It should consider Rhett Bryan for the ambassador element of Keith’s role. Very few people exist who have been around the team for everything and he’s one – having attended every game in some capacity connected to the radio broadcast. He’s perfect for outreach.
The word from team headquarters is they are still sorting out whether it’s going to be one job or more. It does not seem they are in a hurry as Dave McGinnis, Amie Wells, Ramon Foster and Bryan worked together at the combine and presumably will handle the draft and McGinnis is staying on as the color analyst for games.
Just a peripheral thought, but I’d keep an eye out for talent linked to Chicago, which has a lot of teams and where Burke Nihill has roots.
