Robert Saleh is not wasting time in Tennessee. The new Titans head coach made his first big trade Monday, sending former second-round nose tackle T’Vondre Sweat to the New York Giants in exchange for edge rusher Jermaine Johnson II. The deal is a snapshot of how Saleh wants to remake this defense.
The trade itself is interesting. Sweat is a 24-year-old run-stopping nose tackle who was drafted 38th overall in 2024. He was reliable in his rookie year but never developed into the disruptive interior presence Tennessee hoped for. Johnson is a 27-year-old edge rusher who flashed early in his Jets career and put together a 17-sack season in 2024 before missing most of 2025 with an Achilles injury.
Saleh, who coached Johnson with the Jets, knows exactly what he is getting. Johnson fits the Saleh defensive scheme perfectly. He is fast off the edge, strong at the point of attack, and can drop into coverage when needed. The Achilles is a real concern, but reports out of OTAs say Johnson is moving well and on track for a full training camp.
The Titans are betting on the upside. Tennessee finished last season with the league’s worst pass rush. They had 27 total team sacks. Adding Johnson, even at 75 percent of his 2024 form, immediately makes the Titans’ defensive front more dangerous. Pairing him with returning edge rusher Harold Landry gives the Titans a real two-man rush combo for the first time in years.
For the Giants, this is depth and youth. Sweat is six years younger than Johnson and significantly cheaper. The Giants needed nose tackle help after losing Dexter Lawrence in a trade with the Bengals over the weekend. Sweat is not going to replace Lawrence, but he can hold up against the run while New York figures out the rest of the defensive line.
The Saleh angle deserves more attention. The Titans hired him out of a year of unemployment after his messy ending with the Jets. Saleh had a 19-46 record in New York and got fired five games into the 2024 season. The reputation took a hit. Tennessee took the swing anyway because the Titans needed a defensive mind to fix a roster that has been one of the worst in football for two straight years.
Saleh’s plan is now coming into focus. He is going to build a 4-3 defense with speed up front, athletic linebackers, and aggressive coverage on the back end. The Johnson trade is move No. 1. Expect more.
The Titans had a brutal 2025 season. They finished 3-14. They have a young quarterback in Cam Ward who they drafted with the second overall pick. They have major holes at almost every position on the roster. The rebuild is going to take more than one offseason.
What Saleh has going for him is cap space and draft capital. Tennessee has the most cap space in the AFC heading into the season. They have a clear path to draft another top-five pick in 2027 if things go sideways again. The franchise is going to be patient with this rebuild.
The Sweat side of this is mostly fine. He is a solid run-stopping interior player who can rotate with the Giants’ existing defensive line. He is not a star, but he is the kind of young defensive lineman teams need to develop. New York gives him a chance to play meaningful snaps. Tennessee freed up the cap space to chase a real difference-maker on the edge.
The Giants now have multiple young defensive linemen and two top-10 picks in the 2026 draft. They are positioning themselves to remake the entire defense in one offseason. John Harbaugh is going to have plenty of new pieces to work with in his first year.
The Titans, meanwhile, just made the kind of move that suggests Saleh is going to be aggressive about reshaping this roster. The next trade is probably coming sooner rather than later. Tennessee fans should buckle in.
A longtime sports reporter, Carlos Garcia has written about some of the biggest and most notable athletic events of the last 5 years. He has been credentialed to cover MLS, NBA and MLB games all over the United States. His work has been published on Fox Sports, Bleacher Report, AOL and the Washington Post.
