Titans Clips
Offseason programs will start getting underway around the NFL next week.
The ten teams that hired new coaches this offseason will be eligible to start working with their players on Monday, April 6. The Ravens are the only team that has set that as their first day of work while the Cardinals, Falcons, Bills, Browns, Raiders, Dolphins, Giants, Steelers and Titans have set Tuesday as their opening day.
All of those teams will also be able to hold a voluntary minicamp later in the spring. Every team is also scheduled to hold a rookie minicamp and a mandatory minicamp over the course of the next few months.
The first two weeks of work for all teams is limited to meetings, strength and conditioning, and physical rehabilitation only. The three-week second phase allows for on-field work, but no full-speed team drills while the third OTA phase allows for team drills, but there is no live contact allowed at any point in the offseason.
Most of the 22 teams with returning coaches will be opening their offseason programs on April 20 or 21. The Broncos have set May 4 as their first day.
The Chiefs are adding a former first-round pick to their defense.
Kansas City has agreed to sign cornerback Kaiir Elam, Mike Garafolo of NFL Network reports.
Elam, 24, split last season between the Cowboys and Titans. Buffalo traded him to Dallas at the beginning of the league year in March after his first three seasons with the club. Elam appeared in 10 games with seven starts for Dallas before the Cowboys waived him in November.
He signed with the Titans shortly thereafter and appeared in four games with the club over the rest of the season.
The No. 23 overall pick of the 2022 draft, Elam has appeared in 43 career games with 19 starts. He’s recorded eight passes defensed with two interceptions.
The Chiefs have voids to fill in their secondary after trading Trent McDuffie and losing Jaylen Watson in free agency.
The Titans have been discussed as a potential landing spot for running back Jeremiyah Love with the fourth overall pick, but they have also spent time with three of the top defensive players in this year’s class.
Jim Wyatt of the team’s website shares that Ohio State linebacker/edge rusher Arvell Reese, Texas Tech edge rusher David Bailey, and Miami edge rusher Rueben Bain have all visited with the team. General Manager Mike Borgonzi said this week that the team feels they have built a roster that will allow them to take the best player at any position and head coach Robert Saleh explained why that could be a pass rusher.
“Edge rushers are playmakers, too,” Saleh said. “When you are drafting that high … you are looking at: Who can change the game in one play? And, edge rushers can change the game in one play. Love is a very talented young man and he can change it in one play. There’s receivers who can change it in one play. Right now, we need guys and we need to develop guys currently on our roster who can change the game in one play and when you are looking at all these guys from a consistency standpoint, who can flip the game on its head? Edge rushers can close it, and skill guys can end it.”
Reese has been linked with the Jets at No. 2 throughout the early stages of the draft process, but the Titans would have at least two and possibly all three of Love, Bailey, and Bain available when they’re on the board for the first time next month.
On a busy day for the Titans, they’ve made a third and fourth addition to their offense.
The Titans are signing free agent running back Michael Carter and wide receiver Lance McCutcheon.
The signing will reunite Carter with Titans head coach Robert Saleh, who was the Jets’ coach when they drafted Carter in the fourth round in 2021. Carter started 21 games for the Jets before he was waived and claimed by the Cardinals in 2023.
McCutcheon is re-signing with the Titans after playing for them last season. He has previously spent time with the Rams, Texans, Jets and Steelers.
The Titans also signed quarterback Hendon Hooker and wide receiver K.J. Osborn today.
The Titans are adding another quarterback to their roster.
Per Jeremy Fowler of ESPN, Hendon Hooker has agreed to sign with Tennessee.
Hooker, a third-round pick in the 2023 draft, was most recently with the Jets. He had signed with the team’s practice squad late in the 2025 season and was promoted to the 53-man roster in January.
The Lions had waived Hooker in August while reducing their roster to 53 players and he signed with the Panthers’ practice squad a couple of days later.
Hooker has appeared in just three regular-season games, all in the 2024 season with Detroit. He’s completed 6-of-9 passes for 62 yards.
With the addition of Hooker, the Titans will have five quarterbacks on their offseason roster with Mitchell Trubisky, Brandon Allen, and Will Levis all behind 2025 No. 1 overall pick Cam Ward. It stands to reason that at least one will be moved in the coming weeks, with Levis being a prime candidate after recovering from a shoulder injury that kept him out for all of last season.
Wide receiver K.J. Osborn is headed to Tennessee.
Adam Schefter of ESPN reports that the Titans are going to sign Osborn to a one-year contract.
Osborn failed to make the Commanders out of training camp last summer and spent time on the Falcons’ practice squad, but he did not appear in any regular season games with Atlanta. He played one game for Washington in 2024 and caught seven passes for 57 yards in seven games for New England before heading to the Commanders as a waiver claim.
Osborn spent his first four seasons with the Vikings. He had 158 catches for 1,845 yards and 15 touchdowns during his time in Minnesota.
There was some question about whether wide receiver Calvin Ridley would be back with the Titans for the 2026 season, but he and the team worked out a revised contract this month that will keep him in Nashville.
Head coach Robert Saleh explained from the league meetings in Arizona on Tuesday why the team felt it was important to hold onto Ridley after he was limited to seven games last season with a fractured fibula.
“I know not everything has gone perfect, but when he is on the field, he is a problem,” Saleh said, via the team’s website. “Any time you can add players, or keep players in this case, who can score from anywhere on the football field, I think that is important.”
The Titans added free agent Wan’Dale Robinson to their receiving corps this month and the hope in Tennessee is that the duo can help quarterback Cam Ward hit a new level of productivity in his second NFL season.
Jaguars head coach Liam Coen had a beef with Robert Saleh when Jacksonville faced the 49ers last season, but things appear to have calmed down ahead of Saleh’s first season as the Titans’ head coach.
Saleh said that Coen and the Jaguars had “a really advanced signal stealing-type system” that they deployed to their advantage ahead of a September game and Coen made it clear on the field that he didn’t appreciate Saleh’s comments after the 26-21 Jaguars win. Saleh never accused the Jaguars of doing anything illegal, but said after the game that his choice of words could have been better because he meant it as a compliment to Jacksonville’s preparation.
At the league meetings in Arizona on Tuesday, Saleh said that the two men have moved past the issue.
“We’re good,” Saleh said, via Michael DiRocco of ESPN.com. “I know the NFL probably wants more of a story, but there’s no story. I have an appreciation for Liam. Like I said, I used the wrong word when I was trying to give him a compliment, but all that’s under the bridge. We’ve talked and put it behind us.”
Coen said that the incident has been fodder for teasing from other coaches around the league and the two men will get a pair of chances to renew their acquaintance during the 2026 season.
The Titans have added a lot of players to the roster since the start of free agency and General Manager Mike Borgonzi said that work will free them up with their first-round pick next month.
Borgonzi selected quarterback Cam Ward first overall last year and he will have to wait until No. 4 before selecting Ward’s new teammate this year. Ward’s presence takes one position out of the running, but Borgonzi said on Monday that the team will not be ruling anything else out before they’re on the board.
“Where we’re at right now, we want to take the best player available,” Borgonzi said, via the team’s website. “It depends on your roster construction, too, but where we are at, we are taking the best player available. . . . We are taking the best football player.”
Running back Jeremiyah Love, linebacker Sonny Styles and safety Caleb Downs are three top prospects in this year’s draft class who play positions that aren’t typically selected at the top of the draft, but Borgonzi’s comments suggest the Titans could buck that convention in a few weeks.
Borgonzi’s open mind extends to the possibility of a trade, but the prospect of adding a player who can help immediately may be of more interest than future assets for a team that’s 19-49 over the last four seasons.
Notre Dame running back Jeremiyah Love is favored to be the No. 4 overall pick. Saquon Barkley was the last running back selected in the top five, going second overall to the Giants in 2018.
Being a high draft pick isn’t high on Love’s list of NFL goals.
“I want to be one of the best of all time,” Love said Tuesday at Notre Dame’s Pro Day, via Talia Baia of ABC 57. “I want to be a Hall of Famer. I want to be a Pro Bowler my very first year. I want to win Offensive Rookie of the Year.
“I tell them all these goals that I have. Obviously, these are goals. Goals are goals, but you’ve got to have a process for how you want to achieve those things. I’ll go every season and set out little goals, like per week, what I can do to make sure I’m reaching the bigger goal that I have. I’ve told all these teams this. It’s a lot of big talk, but I have a process and I have a plan for how I’m gonna get there.”
Love prides himself on being a three-down back, able to do it all. He ran for 2,882 yards and 36 touchdowns on 433 carries and caught 63 passes for 594 yards and six touchdowns in his three seasons with the Irish.
He plans to be as productive in the NFL.
“I’ve learned that it takes consistency, discipline, once you get to the league, don’t change who you are,” he said when asked about those lofty long-term goals. “A lot of times, guys get to the league and they’re, ‘I made it.’ No, you haven’t made it. You ain’t made it past your first contract. You’ve got to get to that. For me, I want to get to my third contract. So, when I get to my third contract and that’s over and I’ve got, shoot, one day, hopefully I’ve got my gold jacket. One day, I’ve made the Pro Bowl hopefully five-plus years. Then, I think I’ve had some type of success. Those are questions that I ask going into these meetings and going into these visits, and I just want to know how I can be a better version of myself.”
