Titans’ top waiver claim status landed them the most popular player this week over rest of NFL, raising floor at scary position

The Tennessee Titans cut their initial roster to 53 this past week, and six of those players are cornerbacks. That room was comprised of their three starters — L’Jarius Sneed, Jarvis Brownlee Jr, and Roger McCreary — a veteran in Darrell Baker Jr, and then a pair of inexperienced young players in rookie Marcus Harris […]

Destin Adams, Easton Freeze, Kyle Crabbs
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The Tennessee Titans cut their initial roster to 53 this past week, and six of those players are cornerbacks. That room was comprised of their three starters — L’Jarius Sneed, Jarvis Brownlee Jr, and Roger McCreary — a veteran in Darrell Baker Jr, and then a pair of inexperienced young players in rookie Marcus Harris and 2024 UDFA Gabe-Jeudy-Lally.

This room has looked perilously thin all summer long. And the initial room looked inexperienced and shaky beyond the starters. But the Titans had the first overall waiver claim position on Wednesday (which they’ll keep for the first three weeks of the season), and they used it to claim a pair of veterans who raise the floor at that position.

Jalyn Armour-Davis

New Titans CB Jalyn Armour-Davis was a popular guy on the first day of waiver claims. It was reported that at least three other teams submitted a claim for the former Ravens defender, and conversations I’ve had this week suggest that the number of interested teams might have been double that.

Front offices talk, and when you have the top waiver claims like the Titans do, other executives will ask you if they should even waste time doing the legwork on a guy or if you’re going to claim them. GM Mike Borgonzi had this to say about Armour-Davis on Thursday:

“I’ve studied Jalyn since back in Alabama. He’s had some injuries, but we feel like we have a good plan here with the training staff that we’re going to be able to get him up to speed,” Borgonzi said. “He’s a talented corner. As we were going through these preseason cuts, really, he was one of the better corners out there that we saw. He’s still young. He’s talented. And there were four other teams, I think, that put a claim in for him, four including us. So, yeah, I think any time you can add a young corner to the roster, that’s why we put the claim in.”

So why was such a popular defender cut in the first place? Here’s some insight from somebody who’s been glued to Ravens camp all summer, my A to Z colleague Kyle Crabbs:

“Armour-Davis is a fourth-year cornerback out of Alabama who has good side and explosive speed. He’s been used sparingly throughout the first three seasons of his time in the NFL but the Ravens were still hesitant on the idea of cutting him loose. His availability is a byproduct of the emergence of UDFA sensation Keyon Martin and a roster crunch elsewhere. DeCosta called it a “nuanced, tough decision…we agonized over it.” Now, Baltimore may lose a little sleep to see him lining up elsewhere in 2025. He’ll play this season for $1,106,299M in cash in the final year of his rookie contract”

Will he find a way to magically stay healthy now that he’s a Titan? That’s not a bet you want to be too reliant on. But the downside of making the claim and rostering him is low, and if the league-wide interest is any indication, he should provide a higher floor for your CB room this year.

Samuel Womack

I wanted to quickly touch on the other cornerback the Titans claimed, former Indianapolis Colt Samuel Womack. He represents a similar waiver wire “hit” for the 2024 Colts that Darrell Baker Jr. was for the 2024 Titans: a veteran claimed to provide depth, but was then thrust into a position to play a lot of meaningful snaps due to injury. Both players acquitted themselves fine when asked to step up, which is about all you can ask for from a waiver claim find: be serviceable if we need you.

So why did the Colts let him go? My A to Z colleague Destin Adams on the Colts beat shared the inside scoop on the change in Indy that likely pushed Womack out:

“Womack was a pleasant surprise last season for the Colts. They landed him off waivers from the San Francisco 49ers with the thought he would be a solid doeth piece. Due to injuries he ended up playing a much larger role and did so at a high level. Entering year two many thought he could take another step forward but sadly that didn’t come to fruition. The scheme change hurt him significantly more than anyone imagined. Gus Bradley’s defense allowed Womack to sit back and use his reaction speed to be more patient in coverage and make plays when the ball came. Lou Anarumo’s defense expects defensive backs to be more aggressive and proactive to take away WRs and it caused him to struggle. He went from potentially competing for a starter job to logging reps with the third team for a good portion of camp. Hopefully this change of scenery helps him return to the success he saw in 2024, even f the Colts would have prefered that not to happen with an AFC South rival.”

Womack and Armour-Davis raise the level of experience — and hopefully, the level of play — on the back end of a tenuous Titans cornerback room. I still wouldn’t call this position “comfortable” for Tennessee, not at all. But is it in a better spot today than it was a week ago? Yes, it is.

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