Titans add former Super Bowl champion via free agency
The Tennessee Titans need help in the secondary and it looks like they may have found some in former Tampa Bay Buccaneers cornerback Sean Murphy-Bunting. Per The Score's Jordan Schultz, the Titans are finalizing a one-year, $5 million deal to bring the former Super Bowl champ to Nashville. Murphy has solid size at 6-foot-0, 194-pounds, […]
The Tennessee Titans need help in the secondary and it looks like they may have found some in former Tampa Bay Buccaneers cornerback Sean Murphy-Bunting.
Per The Score's Jordan Schultz, the Titans are finalizing a one-year, $5 million deal to bring the former Super Bowl champ to Nashville.
Murphy has solid size at 6-foot-0, 194-pounds, but it's his athleticism and speed that stand out the most. He's also a very versatile corner that has the ability to play on the outside and in the slot, albeit he is most effective on the outside. He would play outside in base defense and inside when the Bucs deployed their nickel/dime packages. His versatility is a big reason why he was able to record six interceptions in four seasons with the Bucs.
Bunting was drafted in the second round of the 2019 NFL Draft and became a starter for the Buccaneers that year. He showed a ton of promise, racking up three interceptions, eight pass deflections and 1.0 sack.
2020 was up-and-down, but SMB really took off in the playoffs. In fact, he became the first player since Hall of Fame safety Ed Reed to record an interception in each of his first three career playoff games.
2021 was a season filled with big expectations for Murphy-Bunting, but he dislocated his elbow in the first game of the season and subsequently missed the next eight games. He never caught back up to speed and struggled once he returned to the field.
SMB then lost his job during the 2022 offseason. Jamel Dean was promoted as the Buccaneers' No. 2 cornerback and safety Antoine Winfield Jr. was moved into the slot role. With both of his roles filled, Murphy-Bunting was relegated to a reserve/special teams role.
Injuries would later thrust SMB back into the starting lineup of Week 9 and while he still had his occasional struggles, he started to show flashes of the player people were getting used to before the elbow injury in 2021.
In all, the Titans are getting a very versatile cornerback with a lot of potential – he just has trouble putting it all together. It looked like SMB lost a lot of his confidence after the 2021 season, but he started to pick up the pieces toward the end of last year.
If Mike Vrabel and co. can tap into SMB, then the Titans could very easily find themselves with a quality player that can play multiple positions in the secondary. It's hard envisioning him beating out the likes of Kristian Fulton, Roger McCreary, and Elijah Molden for starting time, but, the NFL is an unpredictable beast and, all it takes is one injury for a backup to suddenly become a starter.
