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The Tennessee Titans appear set at the quarterback position for at least the next few seasons thanks to the emergence of Ryan Tannehill since 2019, but that hasn’t stopped ESPN from including them in a trade scenario for disgruntled Green Bay Packers quarterback, Aaron Rodgers.
The reigning MVP has been the topic of trade conversations and rumors over the past week thanks to his beef with the Packers’ front office, which might have caused irreparable damage.
As a result, ESPN’s Bill Barnwell thought up a trade scenario for the Packers and seven different teams, and the Titans were included as one of those teams even though there has been no indication at all that they’re in on Rodgers.
The deal has the Titans sending Tannehill and two first-round picks (2022 and 2023) to the Packers in exchange for the future Hall-of-Famer and a 2023 fourth-round pick.
Barnwell reasons that the Titans are a good trade partner for the Packers because of their ability to send back a solid veteran quarterback.
If there’s a scenario in which the Packers want to trade Rodgers and get the best possible veteran quarterback they can as part of the return, this swap makes sense. Tannehill has been brilliant since joining Tennessee, posting the league’s fifth-best QBR (73.4) and second-best passer rating (110.6) over the past two seasons. He has topped Rodgers in both categories over that time frame. Tannehill, who is five years younger, was also running a similar offense in Tennessee to what the Packers use under former Titans offensive coordinator Matt LaFleur, so he’s as close to a plug-and-play replacement as possible.
For the Titans, this would be a move to get over the hump. Tannehill has been an incredible surprise since joining the organization as part of a salary dump with Miami, but his playoff performances haven’t been overwhelming. The Titans relied heavily on Derrick Henry in the 2019 postseason, with Tannehill unable to win a shootout against Mahomes in the AFC Championship Game. In the wild-card round earlier this year, Tannehill led a quick touchdown drive against the Ravens and didn’t make it into the end zone again the rest of the way.
He has averaged fewer than 7 yards per attempt in both playoff defeats, and while Tannehill wasn’t dragging the Titans down in either game, he wasn’t able to take them to the next level. We know Rodgers has that in him. This would be a two- or three-year window to try to win with Rodgers and Henry as a devastating one-two punch on offense.
While the Titans are no doubt happy with Tannehill under center, they’d be crazy not to at least consider trading for a quarterback the caliber of Rodgers, who is one of the best in the NFL and would be an instant upgrade over their current signal-caller, as good as Tannehill has been.
The only downside is that Rodgers will be 38 in December and may not have a lot of years left in him — but then again, the Titans’ championship window might be closed before Rodgers rides off into the sunset to host “Jeopardy!” or do whatever long-term plans he has after his playing days are over.
And, yes, the two first-round picks aren’t a big deal either because of the team’s win-now situation; a small price to pay to vault into the group of Super Bowl favorites in 2021.
There’s a 99.9 percent chance this will never happen, but if that .1 percent comes to fruition, the Titans should push all of their chips to the middle of the table.
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