We’re looking at all NFL team’s free agent moves (in and out) and their NFL Draft to see who got better and by how much -- setting the tone for analyzing them for the upcoming season for FF purposes and for betting evaluations on team over/unders, etc.
We had Grok list all the moves and we show them first and then Ross and I (RC) weigh in on what we see with all the roster moves -- how they affect 2025 only. And ultimately we pick a winner.
We’ll do two matchups per day, within each division seeded from the 2024 final standings, for 16 days...then we’ll take the 16 winners and accelerate the matchups after that and advance the best ‘offseason’ moves teams through to the ‘Super Bowl’, declaring a final winner.
Tennessee Titans 2025 Free Agency Losses:
QB Mason Rudolph (Pittsburgh Steelers)
RB Julius Chestnut (Free Agent)
WR Tyler Boyd (Free Agent)
WR Nick Westbrook-Ikhine (Free Agent)
OT Nicholas Petit-Frere (Free Agent)
G Daniel Brunskill (Free Agent)
C Aaron Brewer (Free Agent)
DT Sebastian Joseph-Day (Free Agent)
LB Jerome Baker (Free Agent)
LB Jack Gibbens (Free Agent)
S Jamal Adams (Free Agent)
S Quandre Diggs (Free Agent)
OL Andrew Rupcich (Free Agent)
DT Keondre Coburn (Free Agent)
LB Luke Gifford (Free Agent)
K Nick Folk (Free Agent)
Tennessee Titans 2025 Free Agency Signings/Additions:
QB Brandon Allen (1 year, $2.5M, $1M guaranteed)
QB Tim Boyle (1 year, $1.5M, $0.5M guaranteed)
WR Van Jefferson (1 year, $1.5M, $0.5M guaranteed)
WR Tyler Lockett (1 year, $10M, $5M guaranteed)
OT Dan Moore Jr. (4 years, $82M, $50M guaranteed)
OT Lane Hance (1 year, $1.5M, $0.5M guaranteed)
OG Kevin Zeitler (1 year, $5M, $2M guaranteed)
LS Morgan Cox (1 year, $1.5M, $0.5M guaranteed)
LB Cody Barton (3 years, $21M, $10M guaranteed)
LB Darrell Baker Jr. (1 year, $1.5M, $0.5M guaranteed)
S Xavier Woods (2 years, $10M, $5M guaranteed)
P Johnny Hekker (1 year, $2M, $0.5M guaranteed)
Tennessee Titans 2025 Rookie Draft Picks and Undrafted Free Agents:
QB Cam Ward (1st Round, No. 1)
EDGE Oluwafemi Oladejo (2nd Round, No. 52)
S Kevin Winston Jr. (3rd Round, No. 82)
WR Chimere Dike (4th Round, No. 103)
TE Gunnar Helm (4th Round, No. 120)
WR Elic Ayomanor (4th Round, No. 136)
OG Jackson Slater (5th Round, No. 167)
RB Kalel Mullings (6th Round, No. 211)
P Josh Crawshaw (7th Round, No. 251)
WR Xavier Restrepo (UDFA)
CB Clarence Lewis (UDFA)
DL DeVonta O'Malley (UDFA)
DL Desmond Evans (UDFA)
CB Jermari Harris (UDFA)
CB Virgil Lemons (UDFA)
DL Philip Blidi (UDFA)
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Houston Texans 2025 Free Agency Losses:
LT Laremy Tunsil (Washington Commanders)
G Kenyon Green (Philadelphia Eagles)
S Eric Murray (Jacksonville Jaguars)
WR Stefon Diggs (New England Patriots)
LB Neville Hewitt (Free Agent)
CB Ronald Darby (Free Agent)
CB D’Angelo Ross (Free Agent)
Houston Texans 2025 Free Agency Signings/Additions: OT Cam Robinson (1 year, $14.5M, $7M guaranteed)
G Laken Tomlinson (1 year, $4.25M, $2M guaranteed)
DT Sheldon Rankins (2 years, $15M, $7.5M guaranteed)
DT Mario Edwards Jr. (2 years, $9.5M, $4M guaranteed)
DE Derek Barnett (1 year, $4M, $2M guaranteed)
DE Darrell Taylor (1 year, $3.5M, $1.5M guaranteed)
DE Casey Toohill (1 year, $2M, $0.5M guaranteed)
LB Nick Niemann (1 year, $1.5M, $0.5M guaranteed)
LB E.J. Speed (2 years, $6M, $3M guaranteed)
CB Tremon Smith (2 years, $7.5M, $4.5M guaranteed)
WR Braxton Berrios (1 year, $2.5M, $1M guaranteed)
WR Christian Kirk (Acquired via trade, contract not disclosed)
WR Justin Watson (1 year, $2M, $0.5M guaranteed)
OT Trent Brown (1 year, $5M, $2M guaranteed)
S C.J. Gardner-Johnson (Acquired via trade, 2 years, $12M, $6M guaranteed)
Houston Texans 2025 Rookie Draft Picks and Undrafted Free Agents: WR Jayden Higgins (2nd Round, No. 34)
OT Aireontae Ersery (2nd Round, No. 48)
WR Jaylin Noel (3rd Round, No. 79)
CB Jaylin Smith (3rd Round, No. 97)
RB Woody Marks (4th Round, No. 116)
S Jaylen Reed (6th Round, No. 187)
QB Graham Mertz (6th Round, No. 197)
DT Kyonte Hamilton (7th Round, No. 224)
TE Luke Lachey (7th Round, No. 255)
WR Daniel Jackson (UDFA)
C Eli Cox (UDFA)
LS Austin Brinkman (UDFA)
LB KC Ossai (UDFA)
Ross Jacobs’ analysis...
Tennessee Titans Off-season Grade: D+
I don't understand what the new Titans front office is doing. It's like they are operating solely off of PFF's opinion. The offensive line is improved somewhat I suppose, but at what cost? Dan Moore and Kevin Zeitler are hardly inspiring choices. Ditto the WR corp and Van Jefferson and Tyler Lockett. That's not a group of names to strike fear in the hearts of opponents.
Then they reportedly turned down at least three 1st round picks to trade away the #1 overall pick and instead just took Cam Ward themselves. I can't grade against that since this is just 2025 improvement, but is Ward really that much better than Will Levis? They play a similar style game, stupid mistakes and all, but Levis is even bigger and more physically talented than Ward is. I don't see it as the massive upgrade most others do. They also added an edge rusher that's been playing edge for less than a full season, a safety that was injured most of 2024, a WR that only runs one route, another WR that can't catch, and a TE that can't block. I had high hopes for this new staff, but they have been a complete and utter letdown so far.
Houston Texans Off-season Grade: B+
Tennessee could take lessons from Caserio and the Texans. This is how you handle the off-season. The Texans identified their two key problems from 2024, offensive line and receiver, and they attacked the problem. Now trading away their "best" offensive lineman from an already shaky group might not sound smart to most people, but Tunsil was a walking penalty and was infecting the locker room with his terrible attitude. This is addition by subtraction. Then they went and added a lot of good depth, and perhaps a couple veteran starters, on cheap 1-year deals. There are too many potentially useful ones to list here, but almost all of them, save for the goofy WR deals, were extremely smart.
Having patched the offensive line for the short term, Caserio turned his attention to the WR room in the draft and nailed it by grabbing both of the super athletic Iowa St kids, Jayden Higgins and Jaylin Noel, along with a very athletic developmental (in my opinion) tackle in Ersery. The draft tailed off after that, but those three alone are better than most teams managed. Overall, this was a highly impressive job by Houston and might have them poised to rebound in 2025 and make a deep playoff run.
Winner: Houston Texans
Not even close to me. Tennessee totally botched their off-season by overspending on mediocre players and forcing a QB similar to the one they already had just for the sake of buying goodwill from the media. It won't last long. Houston, on the other hand, signed a ton of solid players to cheap contracts, surgically extracted some problem players, and aggressively drafted athletic prospects at their biggest positions of need. Houston moves on.
RC’s analysis...
Tennessee offseason comments:
The Titans didn’t lose much in free agency, because they didn’t have much/anything to lose in the first place...a bad team with bad players and a terrible coaching staff. So, 2025 free agency was a big opportunity to build upon a pretty nice 2024 free agency haul -- but the Titans brought in a new GM and everything went further to crap in free agency. Dan Moore and Xavier Woods will play/help but they are not game changers. But given they had little to lose, the Titans have to be deemed a little ‘better’ after free agency.
Then in the draft, they really did not get much better at all. Cam Ward is not an upgrade from Will Levis in 2025. Maybe over time he is, but we’re judging just 2025 impact...and Ward going into a bad O-Line, coaching staff -- he can’t just put the team on his back, he’s not that kind of QB yet. Hardly any rookie is. All the picks after Ward were forgettable. The Titans are not improving their team much at all through personnel in 2025.
Houston offseason comments:
Houston attacked the offseason trying to clean up its biggest problem -- the O-Line. They did ditch ‘names’ from the past (Tunsil, Green), but this was a terrible O-Line, so how big a loss could they be? They brought in Cam Robinson, Trent Brown and Laken Tomlinson through free agency...decent but risky.
Aside from the O-Line churn in free agency, the Texans did add several smart, smaller pieces to the defense. Defensive-minded/background head coaches load up on defense...that’s just the way it is. And they did add some smart pieces for depth and rotation, to an already hopeful/good defense.
In the draft, they really did great day one (trades) and day two (picks)...got a nice OL prospect (Ersery) and two great WR prospects Higgins-Noel. Day three of the draft was more riffraff but thumbs up on a great day two.
RC’s WINNER: Houston Texans
Both teams had OL issues from 2024, but it felt like Houston took the OL fixes more seriously...and were just better at all the moves in total. After O-Line, Houston did nicely in the draft and were smart in free agency filling roles...the Titans did none of that. Win for the Texans.
*Officially Moving on in the Tournament* Houston moves on to the AFC South finals.
