The Tennessee Titans were very busy in free agency, and they put a bow on their haul by swinging a trade with the Kansas City Chiefs for cornerback L’Jarius Sneed.
Titans general manager Ron Carthon recently spoke on the acquisition of Sneed and is thrilled to add the star defensive back into his team’s secondary.
“It’s a huge get,” Carthon said, via Jim Wyatt of the Titans’ official team website. “It gives you three top-flight corners in him and Chidobe [Awuzie] and Roger [McCreary] that can just flat-out cover people. He matches Chido’s energy of being a physical, aggressive corner that can also play in run support. You see a lot of the way game is going with the toss crack, and forcing the corners to come up there and play more in run support, and we have guys who are willing to stick their face in there and tackle people.”
Tennessee sent a third-round draft pick to the Chiefs in the trade.
Carthon added that the Titans monitored the situation with Sneed in Kansas City and pounced when they saw the right opportunity.
“You did your due diligence prior to them franchising him, and then when he was franchised, you kind of got a feel on where it could possibly go,” Carthon said. “And then [the Chiefs] got the deal done with Chris Jones. You study other teams and try and figure out where they are, so it was one of those things where we used a patient and diligent approach, and when the opportunity presented itself, we were in a position to do it, and we made it happen. And then it took effort from both teams to get it done.”
As Carthon noted, the Chiefs slapped a franchise tag on Sneed before free agency, but the general expectation was that the club would be trading him, especially after re-signing Jones to a monster contract.
Upon acquiring Sneed, Tennessee proceeded to hand Sneed a four-year, $76.4 million deal.
Sneed spent the first four years of his career in Kansas City after being selected by the club in the fourth round of the 2020 NFL Draft.
He is coming off of a spectacular 2023 campaign in which he played 16 games and registered 78 tackles, a couple of interceptions, a fumble recovery and 14 passes defended.
We’ll see if L’Jarius Sneed can help take the Titans’ defense to a new level in 2024.
More must-reads: