Stuck in a relationship that was going nowhere and was too broken to fix, the Tennessee Titans decided to cut their losses and trade 2020 first-round pick Isaiah Wilson to the Miami Dolphins for basically no return.
Before we break down the actual trade itself that included a swap of seventh-round picks, we first have to separate this discussion from the actual decision to draft Wilson in the first place.
It was a terrible one by general manager Jon Robinson, and is not only his worst pick as Titans GM, but perhaps one of the worst first-round picks in NFL history. If there was a grade lower than a “F”, Robinson would get it.
However, when talking about this trade, we have to consider the current circumstances that led to it in order to properly evaluate how the Titans did with the deal itself.
The Titans were paying out millions of dollars for a failed draft pick who seemed more interested in partying than playing football. What’s worse is that Wilson was a major distraction for a normally lowkey franchise like Tennessee, and that’s never good for the locker room.
Based on his current trajectory, it’s surprising that the Titans were able to find any taker for Wilson’s contract, so forget about the measly return the team received.
The Titans are off the hook for Wilson’s base salary the next three seasons ($5.3 million in total), and will now save $3.1 million in 2022 and $3.6 million in 2023.
The immediate downside is that they have to pay out $4.4 million in dead money (his guaranteed bonus money) in 2021, which is $1.8 million more than they would have had to pay had Wilson stayed on the roster.
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That’s not great for a team like the Titans that already has limited money to work with, though it really had to be this way.
Had the Titans kept Wilson, he likely would have contributed nothing, and more than likely would have been cut at some point soon. In that scenario, Tennessee would have ended up paying him more over the long run.
The only counter to that is perhaps the Titans could have found a way to void at least some of Wilson’s money because of his antics, but there’s simply no telling if that would have happened.
Of course, it would have been more ideal to simply get a seventh for Wilson instead of swapping picks, and having less money to spend after this trade is definitely a negative, but at the end of the day this move had to be made.
Grade: A-
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