In the wake of hiring Mike Borgonzi to be the Tennessee Titans' new general manager, de-facto decision maker and president of football operations Chad Brinker had a lot of questions to answer when he was finally made available to the media. To his credit, Brinker made various media appearances, answering all of the questions he was asked.
As the face of the front office, Brinker was tasked with explaining the plan moving forward after enduring a 3-14 season in 2024. Owner Amy Adams Strunk hasn't proven to be very patient, and rebuilding a team in a sustainable way usually takes time. How can Borgonzi and Brinker make the best long-term decisions for the team if they're worried about being fired in the short-term?
Brinker acknowledged the frustration of the fan base, but he also laid out his ideal plan for what the Titans need to do to give them the best chance to build a contender.
Both Borgonzi and Brinker believe that the best way to build a team is by drafting, developing, and retaining players and that the emphasis should be on the draft, not free agency, moving forward. To do that, you need to own multiple picks in each draft. Brinker seemed to have an exact idea of how many picks the team wanted over the next three years saying, “Ideally if we could map it out perfectly, you would want about 30 picks over the next 3 years and 12 of those need to come in the top-100," he said during a recent appearance on Ramon, Kayla, and Will.
The Titans are nowhere near owning Brinker's preferred amount of picks. If we fudge the numbers and say that the Titans' fourth-round pick this year (No. 101) is close enough to count as a top-100 selection, then the Titans still only own nine top-100 picks and 23 picks in all over the next three drafts, well short of his count.
The question then becomes, how do the Titans acquire more picks? Considering the strategy that the Titans plan on using going forward, there should be more compensatory picks in the future, but it's tough to project those over the next three years.
Without top 100 compensatory selections, the only realistic way for the Titans to add more picks is by trading veteran players, or trading down from the No. 1 overall selection in the 2025 NFL Draft. However, it is important to remember that the Titans seem to be all-in on the strategy of keeping the handful of players they've drafted and developed, so they tell us.
When Brinker was asked about trading Harold Landry or Jeffery Simmons, he made a point to emphasize that the Titans need guys in the locker room who have been drafted and developed by the organization. He believes those players help show the younger talents how to do things the right way and that those veteran leaders tend to be more loyal to the team that drafted and paid them.
If that proves true, then trading down from the first pick in the 2025 NFL Draft is essential to the Titans' plan. They hold the keys to this draft and hopefully someone will be willing to trade up for a quarterback, allowing the Titans to move down and still get a premium talent like Travis Hunter.
The Titans should explore trade-down opportunities that build up their pool of draft picks over the next three years. That's the clearest way for Brinker and Borgonzi to implement their plan.
The New York Giants, who are scheduled to pick No. 3 overall, are a potential trade-up partner. Even if the Titans moved down and acquired a second-round pick this year and a third-rounder in 2026, a conservative haul compared to recent trade-downs around the league, that would award the Titans 11 top-100 picks and 25 total and in all likelihood, they would still be able to draft a player they love with the third overall pick.
Perhaps the Titans will prefer to roll the dice and take a quarterback with the first overall pick, despite the general consensus saying this group of quarterbacks lacks a standout talent. If the Titans are being truthful in their goal to acquire additional picks, they won't be drafting a quarterback. Instead, this regime appears primed to take a step back from the top spot to build up their roster so that the next quarterback they draft has a legitimate chance to develop into a franchise signal caller.