There’s no doubt about it: the Denver Broncos got a great deal in the trade for former Tennessee Titans defensive lineman, Jurrell Casey.
Last week, the Titans pulled the trigger on a move that surprised everyone in Tennessee and the football world, as they traded the five-time Pro Bowler to the Broncos in exchange for just a seventh-round pick.
Of course, this amounted to a salary dump for the Titans, who added a little over $10 million to their 2020 cap space with the Broncos taking on the majority of his money.
When asked about the trade, John Elway called it a “steal”, according to Broncos beat writer, Aric DiLalla.
“We’re excited about [how it] unfolded,” Elway said in his first comments since free agency began March 18. “You never know. We still have to go win football games. But it was a good start for us this offseason with A.J. Bouye, trading for him at the corner position and then Jurrell Casey, trading for him at the defensive tackle position that we needed and steal a very, very good football player, a five-time Pro Bowler. For us to be able to trade a seventh-round pick for him, we felt very fortunate.”
If Casey can continue to play the way he has during his Titans tenure, then Elway is 100 percent right. It isn’t everyday a team can land an impact defender and elite defensive lineman for such an inexpensive pick.
But Casey doesn’t come without concerns. He did miss two games due to injury in 2019 and is turning 31 in December. If he starts to decline, this trade won’t look as good with the Broncos being on the hook for a significant amount of money.
For the Titans, this move only makes sense if the team has something big planned with the extra money saved, like signing a Jadeveon Clowney. Anything less than that will be met with plenty of criticism.
And deservedly so, you can’t just trade away a great Titan like Casey, who was a mentor to young players and a leader in the locker room, for peanuts and not have something major in the works to fill the void.