2025 NFL Draft order: Which QB should Titans select if they land the No. 1 pick?

Henry McKenna

NFL Reporter

When it comes to the race for the No. 1 overall pick in the upcoming draft, most of the teams in contention put their best foot forward this past week. 

Aside from the Jets, every team currently slated to pick in the top 10 lost in Week 15, with six falling by double digits.

Here’s where the top 10 in the draft order currently stands:

1. Las Vegas Raiders (2-12)
2. New York Giants (2-12)
3. New England Patriots (3-11)
4. Jacksonville Jaguars (3-11)
5. Carolina Panthers (3-11)
6. Tennessee Titans (3-11)
7. Cleveland Browns (3-11)
8. New York Jets (4-10)
9. Chicago Bears (4-10)
10. New Orleans Saints (5-9)

Our weekly spotlight on teams who could pick first overall in 2025 continues with the Titans. 

Quarterback has re-emerged as Tennessee’s top draft priority after Will Levis‘ benching in the team’s 37-27 loss to the Cincinnati Bengals. His four turnovers in the game seemingly erased all the positive momentum he’d built up over the past month as the franchise’s hopeful long-term answer. Coach Brian Callahan had previously been adamant that Levis would be the starter as long as he was healthy.  

Here’s what FOX Sports NFL writers Ben Arthur and Henry McKenna believe the Titans should do if they get the No. 1 overall pick. 

McKenna: I like Shedeur Sanders for the Titans. Tennessee is a nice, quiet media market for Sanders to settle into the NFL. There won’t be the same level of scrutiny as a place like New York. Sanders can develop in Nashville without having to deal with the headaches of tabloids.

Titans coach Brian Callahan was in Cincinnati to develop Bengals QB Joe Burrow, who is the kind of player Sanders will want to develop into. So, why not pair Sanders with The Guy Who Made Joe Burrow?

I also think that organizations like to draft away from what just failed them. As a quarterback, Sanders is quite different to Will Levis. Levis was the Titans’ attempt at getting a Josh Allen. Big arm. Big body. Solid athlete. Sanders isn’t (m)any of those things — but he is a good quarterback. And his strong qualities might appeal because they’re so different from Levis, who seems to be on the way out in Tennessee.

Shedeur Sanders 2024 Colorado Buffaloes full season highlights

Arthur: Would the Colorado star even want to come to the Titans? We know that Deion Sanders has said that he’d privately advocate for certain teams not to draft his son, and we have to consider that the Titans could be one of those teams. Nashville is a smaller NFL market, which could be the opposite of what the Sanderses are looking for. The Titans have also been a sinking ship since earning the AFC’s No. 1 overall seed in 2021 and bowing out early in the postseason. It has been so bad this year that there’s been mounting speculation about the future of the Callahan-Ran Carthon regime after just one season. Being a small market team with an unclear future could be viewed as a double whammy. 

Shedeur Sanders can’t be ruled out, of course — we don’t know what he wants — but Cam Ward is a quarterback many in the scouting community think is a better prospect anyway, so I’ll throw him out there as my pick. His creativity and success in a dynamic passing offense at Miami bode well for a potential partnership with Callahan, who’s worked with a variety of quarterbacks. The 6-foot-2, 223-pound Ward can be a bit reckless at times, but he has the kind of talent to justify patience from Callahan. Ward’s mobility is also better suited for the modern NFL than Sanders, who will be more tied to the pocket. 

What is Cam Ward’s NFL ceiling?

Ben Arthur is an NFL reporter for FOX Sports. He previously worked for The Tennessean/USA TODAY Network, where he was the Titans beat writer for a year and a half. He covered the Seattle Seahawks for SeattlePI.com for three seasons (2018-20) prior to moving to Tennessee. You can follow Ben on Twitter at @benyarthur.

Prior to joining FOX Sports as an NFL reporter and columnist, Henry McKenna spent seven years covering the Patriots for USA TODAY Sports Media Group and Boston Globe Media. Follow him on Twitter at @henrycmckenna.

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