As the Tennessee Titans were on the road to nowhere in 2023 and facing a potential rebuild in 2024, there was a prevailing sentiment among many fans that the team should trade Derrick Henry.
Well, as it turns out, the team was close to doing so. According to Dan Pompei of The Athletic, general manager Ran Carthon had a deal in place to trade the star running back to the Baltimore Ravens for a fourth-round pick that could turn into a third-rounder.
However, the deal was shot down by “Titans hierarchy,” per Pompei.
DeCosta agreed to the framework of a trade with Tennessee general manager Ran Carthon — a fourth-round pick that could have become a third had Henry reached certain production levels. However, others in the Titans hierarchy apparently were not on board with the deal, so Henry played out the season in Nashville.
One would assume “Titans hierarchy” was owner Amy Adams Strunk, and her hesitance to trade Henry would certainly be understandable in the wake of the disaster that was the A.J. Brown trade, and with what Henry meant to the franchise as a whole.
But trading Henry always made the most sense. His departure in 2024 felt inevitable and the Titans certainly could have used more draft capital to help turn over what was a terrible roster.
Instead, the Titans didn’t pull the trigger and Henry ended up leaving for nothing in free agency. Hindsight is always 20/20, but that was a deal Tennessee should have taken, as tough as it would have been to swallow trading Henry to the hated Ravens.
