Titans defensive tackle Jeffery Simmons has seen a lot of players come and go since joining the team in 2019 and one of this offseason’s departures hit him with particularly strong force.
Defensive tackle T’Vondre Sweat was traded to the Jets in exchange for edge rusher Jermaine Johnson. Simmons said during an appearance on CBS Sports’ Offseason Playbook that he was caught off guard when Sweat called him with the news in March because he had taken on a mentorship role for a younger player he believed was headed for bigger things.
Simmons went on to call General Manager Mike Borgonzi for more of a download on why the team decided to go in that direction.
“It was a surprise to me,” Simmons said. “Just trying to get a feel for why. I feel like Sweat — he’s got some potential that sometimes he doesn’t understand. For me, that’s the reason why I’m like Sweat, you’re coming down to Dallas with me this offseason. I wanted to pull that out of him to be able to be like ‘I have so much potential. I can be the best nose tackle in the game of football.’ And he has the potential to do that. I hate it, but it’s a business.”
Sweat was a 2024 second-round pick in Tennessee, which meant he joined the team before Borgonzi and head coach Robert Saleh were in the organization. They determined Johnson was a better fit for where they want to go and a win-win trade would be a plus for a pair of AFC teams that haven’t been consistent winners in a long time.
A new stadium for the Titans is under construction in Nashville and it could soon become the home of Super Bowl LXIV as well.
NFL Media reports that NFL owners are expected to vote on awarding the game to Nashville at this week’s league meeting. The game would be played in 2030 and would be the first Super Bowl held in the city.
The new Nissan Stadium is expected to open in time for the 2027 season, which would give everyone several years to settle into the new digs before the Super Bowl would come to the city.
If Nashville is approved as the host for 2030, the league will have the next four Super Bowl cities lined up. The 2027 game will be in Los Angeles with Atlanta and Las Vegas on deck for 2028 and 2029.
Though they drafted quarterback Fernando Mendoza at No. 1 overall in April, the Raiders are one of five teams without a scheduled primetime game in 2026.
That’s not something new from the NFL, as the Titans didn’t have a primetime game in 2025 either after selecting quarterback Cam Ward with the first overall pick.
While the Raiders are a storied team with a nationally recognized brand, the fact that the team has won just seven games over the last two seasons is surely factoring into how attractive — or, in this case, unattractive — the club is for games in a standalone window.
In a conference call on Friday, NFL VP of broadcasting planning Mike North was asked whether or not the uncertainty of Mendoza being Las Vegas’ starting quarterback factored into the decision to keep the Raiders out of a primetime slot.
“As far as the Raiders go, I mean, nobody knows if or when Mendoza might play,” North said, via Ryan McFadden of ESPN. “It would certainly be great if we knew. We don’t. But they went out and signed a very competent veteran quarterback, and if they find themselves, you know, hovering around .500 and playoff-relevant in the middle of the season, they might be a little more reluctant to pull the trigger and move to the rookie. And if they are playoff-relevant, they will find themselves flexed into bigger national television windows, whether it’s Sunday night, Monday night, or just a bigger footprint on a Sunday afternoon.
“Not to point fingers, but I think the best comp is probably Tennessee from last year. They drafted No. 1 overall, took a quarterback who looks like he can play in this league, [and] they didn’t happen to get a national television appearance last year, either. … We don’t draft our way into primetime. We play our way into primetime.”
While head coach Klint Kubiak and the rest of the Raiders’ brass have said that they’d prefer to have a veteran start over a rookie quarterback early, Mendoza could be in the starting lineup sooner than later over veteran Kirk Cousins. We’ll see how Las Vegas’ quarterback situation plays out and whether or not the club can play its way into a flexed primetime spot as the season unfolds.
The Titans are down to one unsigned draft pick.
They announced the signing of linebacker Anthony Hill on Friday. The second-round pick agreed to a four-year contract with the team.
Hill spent the last three seasons at Texas and closed out his time in Austin with 69 tackles, seven tackles for loss, four sacks, two interceptions, three forced fumbles and a fumble recovery during the 2025 season. He was a finalist for the Butkus Award and a second-team All-American for the second year in a row.
The Titans drafted eight players in April and first-round defensive lineman Keldric Faulk is the only one who has not signed with the team.
The NFL does not expect the Jets, Cardinals, Titans, Dolphins or Raiders to be any good this season.
They are the only teams not to get a primetime game.
The Dolphins finished 7-10 last season but signaled a rebuild with several big moves in the offseason. The Jets, Titans, Raiders and Cardinals all finished 3-14 last season.
The Raiders’ exclusion from primetime is a slight surprise given the presence of No. 1 overall pick Fernando Mendoza and several big-name additions. Kirk Cousins, though, is expected to start the season for the Raiders, so there is no firm date when Mendoza will make his debut.
