Tennessee Titans GM Mike Borgonzi is heading into his first ever draft as the man in charge, but it’s far from his first rodeo helping make decisions on rookies in late April.

Borgonzi was in the Kansas City Chiefs front office since 2010 before landing the Titans job this year, and the biggest decision he has left to make in the Titans draft may come down to how similar his M.O. as a risk taker will be to the reputation his old team has earned themselves.

After the expected pick of QB Cam Ward at 1 overall, the Titans have just one remaining top-100 pick: 35 overall, at the beginning of Day 2. This is a spot Tennessee is likely to go after an EDGE, WR, or perhaps pursue a trade-down for a couple Day 2 picks for more flexibility. What they ultimately do won’t begin to be determined until the hours between the end of Round 1 and the beginning of Round 2 the following day.

The top of Day 2 is always exciting, because it feels like a mad dash for the borderline 1st round players who “fall” out of Day 1. Sometimes the falls are due to the situational needs of the teams in the First Round, sometimes it’s medical issues, and sometimes it’s the media overrated how much the league will like a certain guy.

But sometimes, a player falls because of questions about his makeup off the field. And in the 2025 draft class, there are a couple high-profile players that fit this bill. These are players who have undeniable First Round talent, but are being mocked on Day 2 because the league just isn’t sure about them as people. The most high profile examples this year are Missouri WR Luther Burden, Marshall EDGE Mike Green, and Tennessee EDGE James Pearce.

All it takes is one team willing to pull the trigger to stop a player’s slide. And with any of those players—massive talents at positions of massive need that the Titans could really, really use—we’re likely to be asking ourselves on the Friday night of Draft weekend: just how risk-tolerant is the Borgonzi regime?

Since coming to Tennessee, Borgonzi has said all the right things about wanting high character players, good locker room guys, guys who love football. Yes, of course, every team wants the best people on and off the field. And everybody will tell you publicly that they put a serious emphasis on that in the team-building process. But some teams are more willing than others to risk giving a “second chance” to a player with questionable makeup, if it means securing a tremendous talent on the field.

And Mike Borgonzi’s former team has one of the NFL’s biggest reputations for doing just that.

The Kansas City Chiefs, just in the past couple years when Borgonzi was directly involved in the player personnel and draft decision-making process, have brought in multiple players who had serious red flags on other teams’ boards.

To name a few: Tyreek Hill, Ukeme Eligwe, Kareem Hunt, Clyde Edwards-Helaire, Willie Gay Jr., Rashee Rice, and BJ Thompson. You can throw in Frank Clark and Kadarius Toney for good measure, who the Chiefs traded for.

Frankly, players with profiles like Burden, Green, and Pearce have sound exactly like the type of players you’d expect the Chiefs to take a swing on. Will Mike Borgonzi be the same? There’s a decent chance the Titans are on the clock on Friday night in late April, and we’re all sitting around asking ourselves that very question.

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