The 2026 NFL Draft is just 10 short days away, and we’re in the final sprint of this marathon. Rumors are cropping up everywhere, and you can feel the potential chaos building. There’s supposed “intel” everywhere you look, but any draft season veteran knows you have to keep your head on a swivel at this stage. Some intel is misinformed. Some is a lie by design. And some may be the God’s honest truth today, but a lot can change in the next ten days!

The picture for the Tennessee Titans, whose first pick is 4th overall, is starting to come into view. I continue to have a lot of conversations in and around the league, and there are some things I feel better (or worse) about today as it pertains to Titans draft plan intel that I’d like to put on the record. Here’s what you need to know:

Increased confidence at 4th overall

Following my time at the NFL’s annual Owners Meetings in Phoenix, I put out this piece with my pie chart of 4th overall odds. This is what I felt the likelihood was that the Titans picked each of these players in a stick-and-pick scenerio:

• EDGE Arvell Reese/EDGE David Bailey: 50%
• RB Jeremiyah Love: 35%
• EDGE Rueben Bain: 10%
• LB Sonny Styles: 3%
• WR Carnell Tate: 2%

That was 11 days ago. Today, I have only minor tweaks to apply. Here is how I would set the odds now:

• EDGE Arvell Reese/EDGE David Bailey: 50%
• RB Jeremiyah Love: 35%
• LB Sonny Styles: 10%
• WR Carnell Tate: 3%
• EDGE Rueben Bain: 2%

Why did I rearrange the deck chairs on the bottom three? What do these numbers actually mean? This is a really imperfect way of getting my points across because of the fact that we cannot definitively know who will and won’t be on the board once the Titans are picking. So here’s what I beleive:

I am doubling down on the general sentiment that the Titans would really like for one of Reese or Bailey to fall to them somehow. The late-breaking consensus is that the Jets will pick Bailey, not Reese, at 2. This is what I have been told first-hand, that front offices around the league believe internally that this is the case. They’ve largely been operating under this impression for weeks, and that’s why every insider in the game is hammering that point home now. If the Jets aren’t planning on taking Bailey, it seems they’ve successfully fooled most if not all of the executives and media members outside of the Jets’ bubble. So bravo to them if that’s the case.

The most uncertainty remains at 3 with what the Cardinals may do. I wrote more about the Titans’ likelihood of getting their wish with Reese or Bailey right here. The bottom line is that it still seems more likely than not that we will see both off the board by pick four.

So I am also doubling down on Jeremiyah Love as the favorite in the case that both of those pass rushers are gone. At the end of the day, the Titans want somebody who checks all of the boxes. That’s what every team picking in the top five of a draft is looking for. I believe they see at least one significant box unchecked in Bain, Tate, Styles, and Mauigoa amongst any other theoretical options.

I do not think Mike Borgonzi’s front office sees any boxes unchecked by Love, besides the two letter position abbreviation “RB” in front of his name. I still think pulling the trigger on a running back as high as four in the draft runs counter to Borgonzi’s deeply-rooted fundamentals, but in this circumstance, It’s a “necessary evil” if you will. And even that framing sound far too harsh, because Love is phenomenal and will be an instant fan-favorite.

I would say I am more comfortable with the first assertion, that Bailey or Reese would be the pick if they’re there, than the second assertion that Love will be the pick if they aren’t. There is still a hint of wildcard vibes I’m getting from that scenario, and I won’t personally be totally shocked if Styles or even Tate is the pick in what would be something of a draft-night stunner. But I’d definitely be surprised as of right now.

The breaking Rueben Bain story from this weekend about two reckless driving citations in the past two years, including one that resulted in an accident with a fatality, is only a part of the picture for Tennessee. They are aware of the situation as all teams have been for some time now. I don’t think they were likely to see Bain as a great fit for them at 4 based on his on-field profile in the first place. But the fact that he has these potential off-field question marks and, frankly, will come with immediate scrutiny fresh out of the box for whichever team drafts him is an unavoidable turn-off.

I was aware of the story when I made the initial pie chart, but I wasn’t yet certain of which details were verifiably true. Titans brass spoke very highly of Bain as a player during the Owners Meetings, and so I gave him what I admitted in that article was probably too generous of odds. Now that the story is out and I’ve done some more digging, I’m comfortable putting him at the bottom of the list of possibilities.

Possibility of a 1st Round trade-down

Two more quick nuggets for you, the first being the Titans’ desire to trade-down. Albert Breer at SI beat me to the punch this morning in his latest notebook, in which he lumps the Titans in with teams who would like to trade down. I can confirm that Tennessee certainly is exploring every avenue on that front. Would they trade down for the right price if both top edge rushers are off the board, passing on Love? I think they would. Would they trade down if Bailey or Reese was on the board? I think it would have to be a more significant offer.

But as Breer pointed out (and is pretty much the case annually), there’s stronger interest to trade down at the top of this draft than to come up. Who could actually make a leap? Well, Mickey Loomis is at 8 with his Saints. He’s long been known to move up and down more willingly than most. The Cowboys at 12 are an extremely popular whisper right now, particularly for an edge rusher. And as for who a team would trade up for, I struggle to see it happening for any non-Reese/Bailey players. Perhaps at a serious bargain by top-10 trade standards if a team is truly desperate to move down, but otherwise, I think you’d need one of those two available at your pick to pull off the maneuver. In other words, it’s probably tough cookies for the Titans.

Fixing the offensive line

The biggest looming question marks heading into the draft are arguably the plan at C and RG along the offensive line. Free agency appears to have broken in a way the Titans didn’t expect, particularly at center, and the possible return of veteran RG Kevin Zeitler still hangs in the balance. I have previously said that any re-signing of Zeitler would come after the draft, and I’ll double down on that here. I’ve also previously said that my gut told me Zeitler was more likely to be back than to go somewhere else, and I’d like to fold on that hand here. I don’t feel that way any more. I don’t believe there is no path to him returning, and if the Titans come out of this draft without a significant guard addition, he is squarely back on the table.

But I now believe the Titans will come out of this draft with at least one significant rookie OL addition, and I think the most likely outcome is that it ends up being a new guard. I have prospects like Chase Bisontis and Emmanuel Pregnon highlighted, underlined and circled in the 2nd round as prime Titans considerations. Perhaps the board falls in a way that leads them to a strong center option in Round 3 or 4 instead. That’s a real possibility as well. Heck, maybe both things happen!

We only have to wait 10 more days to see.