The New York Jets announced that they would be moving on from veteran quarterback Aaron Rodgers, which means another team with a high draft pick could call the Tennessee Titans about a trade.
With less than three weeks until free agency, six teams selecting in the top 10 that have question marks at quarterback:
-Titans
-Cleveland Browns
-New York Giants
-Las Vegas Raiders
-Jets
-New Orleans Saints*
Even if some of these teams sign a quarterback in free agency, that doesn't preclude them from drafting a quarterback very high in April. You only have to go back to the 2024 NFL Draft when the Atlanta Falcons drafted Michael Penix Jr. with the eighth pick despite giving Kirk Cousins a massive contract in free agency.
Assuming one of those teams falls in love with Sam Darnold in free agency, that still leaves at minimum four teams looking for a quarterback in April.
Despite the groundswell of support on social media lately, the general consensus remains that this is a down year to need a quarterback in the draft. However, if you do need a quarterback, two players have separated themselves from the pack in Miami's Cam Ward and Colorado's Shedeur Sanders. Those two would be mid- to late-Day One prospects in most years, considering they aren't in the same league of prospect as Caleb Williams, Jayden Daniels, Drake Maye, Bryce Young, and C.J. Stroud were.
With a potential bidding war on their hands (or at least mutual and significant interest in making a trade work), Titans GM Mike Borgonzi and president Chad Brinker have to strongly consider moving down the draft and collecting assets to build up the talent on the roster.
The compensation that the Browns, Giants, and Raiders would have to give up just to start trade talks with the Titans is fairly significant. Using the Jimmy Johnson trade-value chart to come up with a starting point for the Jets, they would have to offer the Titans at least No. 7, No. 42, No. 92, No. 109 in 2025 and their first- and second-round picks in 2026.
That sees the Jets overpay by roughly a mid-Day 3 selection, but that is what it costs a team drafting that low. In the improbable event that only one quarterback is selected in the first five picks, the Raiders will take the remaining quarterback right after that. That means that out of the quarterback-needy teams, the Jets are the first team that can't roll the dice and hope someone falls to them.
The Jets must be aggressive if they want one of the top quarterbacks this year. If the draft compensation scares them, perhaps the Titans would be happy to lower the price if a deal included a player like Garrett Wilson or Alijah Vera-Tucker. But as the list of quarterback-needy teams grows, the price for the top option in the draft goes up, or at least that is what the Titans should be telling potential suitors.
