The real reason the Titans traded two good, young cornerbacks is a mess of their own making there's only one way to solve

The Tennessee Titans came into the 2025 season  with three clear starters at cornerback: L’Jarius Sneed and Jarvis Brownlee Jr. on the outside, and Roger McCreary in the nickel. Now, before reaching the midpoint of the season, they’ve traded two of them and put the third on IR.

Nobody is particularly shocked to see Sneed miss time with an injury, since that’s what the majority of his time in Tennessee so far has been spent doing. But McCreary and Brownlee are two young, talented, NFL starters at cornerback. And this front office just traded them both away for Day 3 pick swaps.

There’s a different story on each of them, but both cases are perfect examples of the fundamental problem that Titans leadership has brought upon themselves by constantly churning regimes.

Regime changes victimize “good” players in the NFL

With Brownlee, it was a… culture fit problem. That trade is never going to look like a good one for the Titans based on what we see on Sundays. He’s a good player, especially as an inside corner which he wasn’t able to be in Tennessee. How good a player he is, or may become, was never the driving factor in the decision to move him. It’s a part of the equation, but based on how he played in Tennessee and how he’s played in New York, it’s clearly not all of it.

With McCreary, this was purely a decision to trade nine more games of cornerback play for something in return instead of nothing. They had no intention of signing him to a long-term deal. You can’t quibble with their decision to pass up nine more games of service—a service that wasn’t coming close to stopping them from losing—for that boost in draft capital. You can, however, quibble with the premise of not having any desire to re-sign him in the first place.

And that’s where this idea of “good” players being victimized by regime change comes in. The simple reality is that fresh eyes bring different opinions and tastes. And new schemes bring new roles, best filled by different players with different strengths and weaknesses. This isn’t something exclusive to the Titans, we see it often when teams come under new management. Players who were good, were starters, and were being maximized suddenly fall out of favor.

We may be seeing it right now in Jacksonville with WR Brian Thomas Jr, for example. We also just saw the Patriots trade a pair of real players this week for Day 3 pick swaps, just like the Titans. For whatever reason, regime change can negatively impact good players. Something just doesn’t click. And when a new front office comes in, like in the Titans case, they’re going to have different preferences. It’s no secret that the tag team of Mike Borgonzi and Chad Brinker prefer longer cornerbacks, which Brownlee and McCreary were not. They want to build their team as they see fit, as is their right, and that’s bound to mean a difference in public and internal opinion on some guys.

This isn’t a blanket defense of the way that they see roster-building. Rather, it’s a plea for the regime changes to stop. This is just one example of a handful of unforced errors that this rotating door of leadership causes. Pick the people you want to build this roster back up from the ash heap it’s been burned down to, give them a runway to actually build something, and make sure you mean it.