ESPN's NFL expert Adam Schefter was talking with Rich Eisen when he dropped this bombshell that most of Titanland had written off: the Tennessee Titans are the favorite among teams that will land quarterback Tom Brady. While rumors were swirling last month that his supermodel wife was shopping schools in Nashville for their kids, fans expressed a mix of "never Tom" or "if he can bring us a championship". The rumor of the school tour was sort of debunked. But now you have to hear this.
Schefter said: This is going to be the most interesting question of the offseason. … Jeff Darlington is a lot more connected to that particular situation than I think a lot of people realize. And in talking with him yesterday — and my eyes were opened to this. I mean I always thought this was possible but I got even more of a hint that it’s more possible. Jeff Darlington basically … I mean, handicapped the Titans as the favorite right now. Which I was like, ‘Whoa. OK. I knew that Tennessee was an option,’ but he made it out to be more of an option than I realized it to be.
And in his mind, to rank the teams right now, would be Tennessee, Las Vegas, and New England.
And his explanation on the podcast was very interesting. And so my takeaway from that was, I think we all need to play a little bit more attention to Tennessee here than we thought, and Tennessee is more viable as a potential Tom Brady destination than we thought. And Tennessee, I expect to be in the mix. Las Vegas, I expect to be in the mix. I think the Chargers will try to be in the mix, I don’t know if they’ll be able to get it done.
And the question is, of course, is does he go back to New England?
He continues...
The real interesting one on Tennessee is this. They have Ryan Tannehill. And if you franchise Ryan Tannehill … it’s very hard to go get Tom Brady. I don’t think you can do that. But do you take the risk of not franchising a guy that played like a franchise quarterback last year, and try to get Tom Brady, running the risk that you could lose both? Or do you go ahead and franchise Tannehill, and remove the Brady option off the table, when it certainly sounds like a possibility?