Star pass rusher’s trade demands could end up being big for the Tennessee Titans.
The cause and effect of moves in the NFL is what makes this league so exciting, and it is something that Tennessee Titans are very familiar with.
In 2011 and 2013 respectively, the Tennessee Titans drafted Jake Locker and Chance Warmack in an attempt to fill two major holes on their roster. That just so happened to be the same years that the Houston Texans drafted players that Tennessee passed on in the first round: J.J. Watt and DeAndre Hopkins.
Despite years of bad decision making, poor coaching and self-sabotage, those two picks have kept the Houston Texans alive and mostly above .500.
I bring this up because while the Titans were trying to fill need positions, the Texans were taking the best players available even though they already had elite players at those positions. Mario Williams and Andre Johnson were nothing to sneeze at, but the Texans decided to add greatness where they could. Not entirely unlike Jon Robinson drafting Jeffery Simmons in 2019, but that is a point for a different article.
This is a method that the Philadelphia Eagles have been using since before their Super Bowl win, and it looks like they are still going at it as they try to add yet another EDGE to their roster.
With the mercurial NFL still shifting and taking form, I want to look at how the law of cause and effect connects these four things:
–Yannick Ngakoue‘s trade demands
-The Eagles’ methodology of supplementing/replacing players at a position of strength
-Jacksonville’s misunderstanding of managing assets
-Tennessee Titans adding cap space and draft capital with no corresponding moves yet
Yannick Ngakoue’s trade demands
In case you don’t watch a lot of AFC South football, I need to contextualize why Ngakoue is so dangerous. Sure, you can see that his first three years in the NFL he averaged nearly 10 sacks per year and that is outstanding enough to stop the conversation here.
But that isn’t even the scary part, the scary thing about Ngakoue is that when he sacks your quarterback he has about a 33% chance of creating a turnover and completely shifting the momentum in favor of his team.
In fact if you take out the weird 2018 season where he didn’t have a single forced fumble recorded, he is averaging a fumble on half of his sacks which is terrifying.
So the Jacksonville Jaguars have seemed to bungle their relationship with Ngakoue to the point where he wants out. That was reiterated today when he said this:
https://twitter.com/YannickNgakoue/status/1244978519282720769
Ngakoue isn’t giving the Jaguars any chance to create leverage and he is making it known that he isn’t playing for Jacksonville no matter what. This has to have other teams salivating over the idea of adding such a big playmaker to their defense.
One team that never shies away from making trades is the Philadelphia Eagles. In 2019 alone they made seven trades which is a very active season for most teams. More telling is that 6 of those 7 trades involved the Eagles getting a player back, so it was more about talent acquisition than building up draft capital.
Speaking of the Eagles…
The Eagles constant pursuit of pass rushers
Speaking of trades and the Eagles adding pass rushers, if you look over the last three years Philadelphia has added 7 different EDGEs by:
-Trading for two
-Signing Chris Long and Vinny Curry
-Drafting three with a 1st and two 4th round picks
So adding EDGEs is a yearly checklist for the Eagles and they have been connected to Yannick Ngakoue ever since the rumors of discontent between he and the Jaguars organization popped up.
Some of it was because Ngakoue posted pictures of former Eagles defenders on Instagram and there were plenty of rumors that a deal was being discussed between Philly and Jacksonville.
Take all of those rumors and trends and pile them up and you can see why the Eagles seem like the odds on favorite to land the 25-year-old stud EDGE. There is a slight hiccup here though.
If you are the Jacksonville Jaguars, how could you possibly let a player like Yannick Ngakoue go when all of his play on the field suggests that he should be a building block of your franchise?
Well, thank goodness we can already point to some recent examples of the Jaguars not having a clue how to build a roster in the NFL. Let’s look at why history shows that the Jaguars will cave.
Oh, Jaguars…
Sometimes teams just can’t get out of their way, habitually making bad decisions at critical moments and ultimately failing to maximize their potential.
A great example of this is the Jacksonville Jaguars transitioning from 2017 to 2018.
Coming off of a 10-6 season which saw Jacksonville make it to the AFC Championship Game, the Jaguars looked like they were settled to be a dominant defense for a long time.
All Jacksonville had to do was to make sure they had enough money to make deals with young impact players like Jalen Ramsey, Dante Fowler and Yannick Ngakoue while finding ways to secure veterans like Calais Campbell and Telvin Smith who made that defense what it was.
Instead, they spent the next two years handing out bad deals to Andrew Norwell, Nick Foles and Myles Jack, while whiffing on draft picks like Taven Bryan over Lamar Jackson.
The lack of optimism over new deals and general frustration led to Jalen Ramsey being traded while A.J. Bouye, Calais Campbell, Malik Jackson, Marcell Dareus, Barry Church, and Dante Fowler were all traded or released because of bad cap management.
Another important event that showed why Jacksonville doesn’t know how to value things correctly came when Telvin Smith decided he needed a year off and instead of showing compassion to the star of that defense, the Jaguars started fining him instead.
They spent two years writing the guide on how to turn a strength into a weakness while alienating their best talent and trading away players for pennies on the dollar.
So, with that context it is easy to see why Yannick Ngakoue would want out and why the Jaguars are probably not savvy enough to figure out a way to convince him to stay.
How does this benefit the Titans?
Going back to the start of this, cause and effect makes the NFL turn. Once you have your core pieces in place (like the Titans do) you don’t have to be as aggressive making moves to get the supplementary pieces.
Quarterback, running back, wide receiver, and left tackle is already locked in on offense. Defensively, the Titans need a run-down EDGE and it would be nice if they had some pass rush prowess, and it wouldn’t hurt to have more depth at cornerback.
However, the bones of the 2019 team that went to the AFC Championship game are intact and most everyone is locked in beyond this season.
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By trading Jurrell Casey, the Tennessee Titans got younger and cheaper in addition to getting some draft capital back. Everyone was expecting a move to be made quickly and the addition of Jadeveon Clowney made a lot of sense.
However, what if trading Casey before his guaranteed money was locked in, was more about a move that Robinson couldn’t see coming, but that he could still assume based on recent history?
Something like the Jacksonville Jaguars trading Yannick Ngakoue to the Eagles? If not that, there are scenarios where the Cincinnati Bengals, Baltimore Ravens or other teams provide the Titans with a chance to make a move that makes them better.
Specifically with the “Ngakoue to Eagles” scenario that seems more like a pending move rather than speculation, how can Jon Robinson and the Titans capitalize on that?
Well a trade for Ngakoue would give the Eagles eight EDGEs which is too many, even for them. If they are looking to unload someone that they don’t want to pay in 2021 (when they are scheduled to be $20 million over the cap) then all signs point to Derek Barnett.
With a decision on a 5th-year option coming quickly for Barnett, this scenario would let the Eagles move on from Barnett without paying him a big chunk of guaranteed money in 2021. The addition of Ngakoue would keep Philly stacked at EDGE with Brandon Graham starting opposite him and with Daeshon Hall, Josh Sweat and Genard Avery behind them.
The Titans could add an EDGE that fits exactly what they need and since Barnett will only be 24 at the start of this season, and would be the perfect candidate for a long deal that doesn’t break the bank.