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\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tTitans general manager Mike Borgonzi speaks to members of the media during a pre NFL draft press conference held at the Titans practice facility Thursday, April 16, 2026.<\/p>\n
Did Titans GM Mike Borgonzi give us a reason to think they\u2019re going to take Ohio State linebacker Sonny Styles fourth overall in the draft? Or was it the opposite?<\/p>\n
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\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tTitans general manager Mike Borgonzi speaks to members of the media during a pre NFL draft press conference held at the Titans practice facility Thursday, April 16, 2026.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s an annual fascination of mine to see which players get the biggest late-stage stock boosts and slumps in the draft media. The news cycle churns fast and furious in the final days before Round 1 commences, and a lot of the flow is dictated by leaks and intentional narrative shaping by team sources. It\u2019s the murky information soup we collectively refer to as \u201clying season\u201d.<\/p>\n
But Titans GM Mike Borgonzi told the truth about something today. I know it\u2019s the truth because it\u2019s a verifiable fact, but I think it contains a broader point that\u2019s going mostly unnoticed. I\u2019m talking about one of the answers he gave at his pre-draft press conference on Thursday. He was asked about how premium a position the linebackers are in head coach Robert Saleh\u2019s defense, and I think the answer he gave was telling.<\/p>\n
The truth about Robert Saleh\u2019s successful linebackers<\/p>\n
\u201cWell, he certainly had a lot of success with linebackers he\u2019s had in San Francisco, the Jets, even his time back in Seattle with those guys\u2019\u201d Borgonzi said.<\/p>\n
Everybody knows Saleh for his defensive success over the years, and there\u2019s no doubt he\u2019s maximized some fantastic LB talent. That\u2019s the internal part of why Ohio State LB Sonny Styles was the implied subject of this question. The external part of why Styles is being asked about harkens back to the beginning of this piece: the NFL Draft prospect stock exchange.<\/p>\n
Styles\u2019 stock as a blue chip LB prospect has been high all along. But in just the past couple of days, the buzz behind him being a potential top 3-5 pick has reached a fever pitch. In a strange class defined by elite players at non-premium positions, the notion that we should all just throw out positional value this time around has seemingly taken over. I think we\u2019ve gone a bit overboard in that regard, and have lost sight of the range of outcomes for a phenomenal LB prospect like Styles.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s true, he\u2019s incredible. He tested legitimately off the charts. This is why Borgonzi struggled to think of a decent comparison for him at the presser. And I think his upside is a high as any linebacker prospect we\u2019ve seen come through since at least Luke Kuechly. But it\u2019s also true that off-ball linebacker is one of the least impactful positions in the sport. In fact, I think it is the least impactful of any offensive or defensive starter. They\u2019re very important to get right, and can be what holds together an entire defensive unit at times, but their range of play-to-play impact is the smallest.<\/p>\n
That\u2019s why I don\u2019t think Styles will live up to a top 3-5 draft pick status unless he is literally Fred Warner. And as much as I love the prospect, what are the sober odds of that happening? Even still, from a predictive standpoint, I refuse to count him out. I think he is one of four players with legitimate odds to be drafted 4th overall by this team. David Bailey, Arvell Reese, Jeremiyah Love, and Sonny Styles. And if Bailey and Reese are gone by the fourth pick, then it comes down to him and Love. I see Love as the favorite, but Reese is still there!<\/p>\n
Let\u2019s get back to what Borgonzi actually said here, because I think his reference to Saleh\u2019s success (perhaps accidentally) makes an important point. The best linebackers in Saleh\u2019s time as an NFL coach is a list that looks more or less like this:<\/p>\n
Fred Warner- 3rd Round , 70th overall<\/p>\n
Dre Greenlaw- 5th Round, 148th overall<\/p>\n
Quincy Williams- 3rd Round, 98th overall<\/p>\n
DeMeco Ryans- 2nd Round, 33rd overall<\/p>\n
CJ Mosley- 1st Round, 17th overall<\/p>\n
Telvin Smith- 5th Round, 144th overall<\/p>\n
Paul Posluszny- 2nd Round, 34th overall<\/p>\n
Kwon Alexander- 4th Round, 124th overall<\/p>\n
Azeez Al-Shaair- UDFA<\/p>\n
Notice how none of these guys are top-5, top-10, or even first round picks at all besides Mosley? In fact, his most prolific linebackers weren\u2019t taken in the first two rounds!<\/p>\n
Now that doesn\u2019t mean you can\u2019t take a good linebacker in the first round to pair with Saleh anyways. Of course not. The point here is that you can find high-level LB talent far further down the board than 4th overall, and Saleh has a rock-solid track record of maximizing the talent of these players! If anything, Saleh\u2019s history is a reason to take somebody other than Styles at 4\u2013not a reason to take him.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Did Titans GM Mike Borgonzi give us a reason to think they\u2019re going to take Ohio State linebacker…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":868067,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2061],"tags":[4955,7,3403,6,2239,526,394,2411,527],"class_list":{"0":"post-868066","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-tennessee-titans","8":"tag-2026-nfl-draft","9":"tag-football","10":"tag-mike-borgonzi","11":"tag-nfl","12":"tag-sonny-styles","13":"tag-tennessee","14":"tag-tennessee-titans","15":"tag-tennesseetitans","16":"tag-titans"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nfl\/116417358807635290","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/868066","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=868066"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/868066\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/868067"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=868066"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=868066"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=868066"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}