The trade of safety Amani Hooker to Buffalo on Tuesday left the Tennessee Titans with nine picks in the 2027 draft, including two first-round choices and two second-rounders, and a clear need on the pass rush, Yahoo Sports reported.
Going into Week 10, the Titans were slotted at No. 2 in the draft order, according to a pick tracker cited in the report. The first-rounders are Tennessee's own and Chicago's pick from the Jeffery Simmons trade. The second-rounders are the Titans' own and the selection Buffalo sent for Hooker. The haul also includes a third, two fourths, a sixth and a seventh. The fifth-round pick went to the Bills as part of the Hooker deal.
Pro Football Focus had Tennessee with the league's lowest team pass-rush grade. First-round pick Keldric Faulk has one sack and two hurries on 86 pass-rush snaps, per PFF, and the team's most disruptive interior rusher now plays in Chicago. The Titans have 20 sacks through eight games, according to ESPN team statistics cited in the article. Remove Simmons' four, and Jacob Martin's 6.5 sacks make up about 40 percent of the 16 that remain.
Hooker's departure also takes five interceptions out of the secondary. Tennessee has eight as a team, so he accounted for more than half of them. ESPN's depth chart, the report said, now lists Tony Adams at strong safety and Kevin Winston Jr., a 2025 third-round pick, at free safety.
That back end faces a pass defense that gave up two late leads in Cincinnati while Joe Burrow threw for 462 yards, the article said.
General manager Mike Borgonzi now has a large pile of 2027 picks to use on the rush and the secondary, but the report was an analysis of needs, not an announcement of a specific future selection.
Sources: Yahoo Sports