It's not exactly fun watching your favorite team lose over and over again but for Tennessee Titans fans, the only true silver lining for this year was always going to be draft positioning. Would the Titans be bad enough to earn the top pick in the draft for the second year in a row?
It was sure looking that way. Yes, they had that come-from-behind win against the Arizona Cardinals earlier in the year but then went on to drop seven straight games and looked anemic in pretty much every facet.
At this point, Titans fans were likely rooting for the team to continue dropping games so that their draft positioning would be better. The Titans probably weren't going to use that top pick on a quarterback but other quarterback-needy teams might have been desperate to swap spots with them and that's what would have worked in Tennessee's favor.
Those fans will be disappointed when they see the score from Week 14's matchup against the Cleveland Browns, as the Titans won the game and, in doing so, hurt their draft stock. Let's take a look at the current top 10 picks in the 2026 NFL Draft according to Tankathon.
Where would the Titans pick in the updated order for 2026 NFL Draft?
Draft Pick | Team | Record | Strength of Schedule |
|---|---|---|---|
1 | New York Giants | 2-11 | .538 |
2 | Tennessee Titans | 2-11 | .573 |
3 | Las Vegas Raiders | 2-10 | .550 |
4 | New Orleans Saints | 3-10 | .498 |
5 | Washington Commanders | 3-10 | .514 |
6 | New York Jets | 3-10 | .514 |
7 | Cleveland Browns | 3-9 | .486 |
8 | Arizona Cardinals | 3-9 | .560 |
9 | Los Angeles Rams (via Falcons) | 4-9 | .502 |
10 | Cincinnati Bengals | 4-9 | .528 |
As you can see, that win over the Browns was costly for Tennessee. They're now in line to hold the second pick in the 2026 NFL Draft with the Giants beating them out for the number one pick due to the strength of schedule tiebreaker. To make matters worse, if the Raiders lose to the Broncos later on Sunday, they'd move up to the second spot over Tennessee due to the SOS tiebreaker.
Of course, teams might still be willing to swap spots with Tennessee at two or three if there's a quarterback they fall in love with but the haul they'll get in return won't be as massive as it'd be if they were the top pick. Fortunately, there are still four weeks remaining in the regular season so plenty of time for the Titans to drop more games and the Giants and Raiders to maybe win one or two and move past the Titans on the draft board.
If anything, maybe this win will give this young Titans team some confidence entering the 2026 season. For now though, it's hard to be too excited about it due to their draft stock taking a big hit.