The Jets and Titans agreed to a player for player trade yesterday with the Jets sending EDGE Jermaine Johnson to Tennessee in exchange for NT T’Vondre Sweat. The trade itself can not be made official until the start of the new league year on March 11 but we will process the trade on OTC now just to avoid some of the confusion that comes with teams that announce trades this early.
Johnson was a former first round pick of the Jets who had his moments with the team, specifically in 2023 when he produced 7.5 sacks and 11 tackles for loss. Johnson tore his achilles the following season before returning in 2025. He didn’t seem to find his footing in the new defense for the Jets and was nowhere near as productive as he was in 2023. The trade reunites him with his former head coach Robert Saleh who was part of the front office that drafted Johnson.
Johnson is in the final year of his rookie contract and is playing on a fully guaranteed $13.411 million salary. The Jets will carry no dead money from the trade and save that amount on the cap. The Titans will be responsible for Johnson’s salary. The Jets now rank 3rd in the NFL with $91 million in cap room, though they are expected to use all of what was gained here and a bit more by applying a transition or franchise tag to RB Breece Hall.
Sweat was a 2nd round pick of the Titans in 2024 and saw a good deal of action as a rookie, but did see his time decline in 2025 and it was already widely rumored that he was not a fit for the new head coaches scheme. Sweat has two years remaining on his contract with low salaries. He has a fully guaranteed $1.66 million salary in 2026 and a $2.09 million salary in 2027 which carries just $472K in guarantees. He will leave the Titans with $1.88 million in dead money, a cap savings of just over $700K. The Titans should have about $97 million in cap room following the trade, the most cap space in the NFL.
Overall I think this is a slight win as a trade for the Titans. Anytime you can swap a 2nd round NT for a 1st round EDGE when neither is really a standout it is a good thing especially since the staff should have a good idea about how to use Johnson. Johnson is in the final year of his contract and they have options including doing an extension and trying to lock up Johnson at a reasonable cost or letting him play things out and seeing where they fall. The team could be eligible for a compensatory pick of some sort if they lose him next year which is a great fallback considering they gave up nothing of real value to their team other than the cap room which they already had an abundance of.
The Jets get themselves a potential space eater in the middle of the field and they save some salary in the process. While the cap room itself probably isnt a big deal, dropping a net $11 million in salary helps offset some of the money the front office kind of threw away last year when they extended and then traded Sauce Gardner. You would have liked to have seen the Jets get more for Johnson but I am sure they are selling this as the same as getting a 2nd rounder for him. Not sure if that logic really works especially when discussing future trades but this is an incredibly important year for the Jets front office and getting the best possible team set ASAP is probably more important than worrying about potential future trade impacts.
