The Seattle Seahawks and Tennessee Titans have agreed to a linebacker swap ahead of Week 8 of the 2024 NFL regular season. Seattle is sending linebacker Jerome Baker and a fourth-round pick to Tennessee in exchange for linebacker Ernest Jones IV. The Titans made the deal official Thursday.
A four-year veteran, Jones has 44 tackles through six games. He is coming off a 2023 season that saw him set career highs with 145 tackles, 4.5 sacks, 14 tackles for loss and six pass breakups. Jones heads to a Seahawks team that at 4-3 is currently in first place in the NFC West division standings.
Baker, who was in the middle of his first season with Seattle, spent his first six seasons in Miami. A fellow former third-round pick, Baker is a seven-year veteran who has tallied 23.5 career sacks, 617 tackles, five interceptions and 23 pass breakups in 99 regular-season games. This season, Baker has recorded 30 tackles and one sack.
Baker will head to a Titans team that has gone on the offensive with the Nov. 5 trade deadline looming. Earlier in the day, the Titans dealt former All-Pro wideout DeAndre Hopkins to the defending two-time defensive Kansas City Chiefs. At 1-5, the Titans were one of several teams expected to be active prior to the league’s trade deadline.
So who won the trade? Here’s our instant grades for the transaction.
Seahawks: A-
As noted above, the Seahawks are looking down on the 49ers, Cardinals and Rams in the division standings, and it’s clear they want to stay in that position after sending Baker and a fourth-round pick to Nashville in exchange for Jones, an ascending player who should improve Seattle’s defense.
The Seahawks offense has started out strong under first-year coach Mike Macdonald. But the defense hasn’t been as good, especially against the run. Seattle obviously wasn’t content with its defense and decided to make an aggressive move now before things begin to ramp up ahead of the Nov. 5 deadline.
Giving up a fourth-round pick is a little steep of a price, though, which is why the Seahawks didn’t receive an “A” for this transaction. And the Seahawks clearly expect Jones to produce more for them than he did this season for the Titans.
Titans: B
By trading Jones and Hopkins, the Titans are sending a clear message that they are actively trying to better their future while not completely throwing away the possibility of being a competitive team for the rest of this season. By trading Hopkins, the Titans freed up cap space and picked up a future mid-round draft pick. The Jones trade yielded them another future mid-round pick in addition to getting a productive linebacker in Baker, who like Jones is also still in his prime.
He may be the inferior player, but Baker is nonetheless a solid defender who will be a nice addition to the Titans defense. The rub here, though, is that the Titans were willing to part with the 24-year-old Jones, who was only in the middle of his first season with the team. But it appears that the Titans are OK with this risk while chalking the Jones experience up as a disappointment.
It’s safe to say that, sans the Seahawks’ division opponents, everyone else around the league is happier with this transaction than the one that sent Hopkins to the two-time defending Super Bowl champions.
