Analyst not ruling out a possible Ryan Tannehill trade

Though Tennessee Titans general manager Ran Carthon and head coach Mike Vrabel have remained bullish in their declaration that Ryan Tannehill will be the team’s Week 1 starter, ESPN’s Bill Barnwell isn’t 100 percent convinced that’s true.

After drafting Kentucky’s Will Levis in the second round of the 2023 draft, Barnwell recently suggested that there’s a path where Tannehill finds himself on another team before next season kicks off.

“Tannehill is owed a non-guaranteed $27 million in the final year of his deal, a significant amount in terms of both cash and cap (the Titans can roll that space over into 2024 if they cut him),” Barnwell wrote. “If Levis is truly the quarterback of the future in Nashville, do the Titans really want to pay $27 million for a lame-duck season from Tannehill? This could come down to the wire. If Levis impresses in camp, or the Titans find a desperate team dealing with an injury to its starter, it's not out of the question that Tannehill could be on another roster in Week 1.”

This isn’t the first time Tannehill has been suggested to be on the chopping block. It was reported shortly after the draft that the Titans nearly traded the Texas A&M alum to the Atlanta Falcons but the deal fell apart because the two sides couldn’t make the money work.

Carthon is on-record stating he had a discussion with Tannehill in February and the 34-year-old QB knows exactly where he stands with the organization.

Tannehill is in the final year of his contract and has a $36.6 million cap hit — second-highest among quarterbacks in 2023, behind only Patrick Mahomes. He has a 36-19 record (66 win percentage) as the Titans starter, but he turns 35 in July and his production has fallen off the last two seasons.

Without a fifth-year option, it makes sense that the Titans would want Levis to start as many games as possible in 2023, especially if the team doesn’t believe it will be competing for an AFC South title or a playoff spot. Trading Tannehill not only clears a considerable amount of cap space, it also allows the team to officially hit the reset button on its roster.