Former Titans GM Has Audacity To Say He Would 'Probably' Take Mulligan On Historically Awful AJ Brown Trade
Robinson owned his mistake, but not in the smoothest of ways.
Treylon Burks was waived by the Tennessee Titans earlier this week in a move any Tennessee Titans fan would tell you was long overdue. The move effectively put a bow on one of the worst trades in modern NFL history when the Titans shipped wide receiver AJ Brown out of town to Philadelphia in order to draft Burks, and now the man responsible for the deal is finally speaking about it.
Jon Robinson was hired as the Titans' general manager in 2016 and undoubtedly helped change the culture of the franchise in Nashville during his tenure. Good things often come to an end, however, and they came crashing down in a hurry for Robinson.
After building a Titans roster that played in the AFC Championship game in 2019 and made the playoffs the next two years as well, Robinson recognized a change needed to be made, and took what turned into what many would say was a franchise-altering swing during the first round of the 2022 NFL Draft.
And he missed, big time.
The Titans traded Brown in exchange for the 18th overall pick of the '22 Draft and other throwaway pieces, and used said pick to draft Burks out of Arkansas. Robinson and the Tennessee front office thought they could replace a proven big-body receiver in Brown with a rookie with a similar build in Burks, but they could not have been more wrong.
Brown has since become a Super Bowl champion and one of the top pass catchers in the NFL, while Burks caught a grand total of 53 passes and one single touchdown during his three-year stint with the Titans.
Treylon Burks has been one of the biggest NFL Draft busts in modern history. (Photo by Wesley Hitt/Getty Images)
Robinson was fired two days after Brown and the Eagles embarrassed the Titans in Week 13 of the 2022 season. He's just now beginning to talk about the monumentally awful trade he orchestrated, but isn't exactly saying the right things.
"That's the topic everybody is probably tuning in to hear about," Robinson said during an appearance on 102.5 The Game in Nashville on Thursday. "I would love to give all the details, I can't go into the detail on it. But there was just a lot of discussions that went into that decision, ultimately it was my resposibiliy to make the decision…"If I had one of those mulligans, I'd probably do that."
Sorry, probably?
If the Titans had signed Brown to a new deal instead of shipping him to the Eagles, Robinson might still be the general manager in Tennessee.
"I mean, in hindsight, if you had a do-over, I’d be an idiot to sit here and say ‘no! I’d do it again!’ Like, no, you’d do it different. But we made the decision that we made and then, you know, the rest is what it is," Robinson later continued.
Since Brown's departure from Tennessee, the Titans have made multiple head coaching and GM changes and posted a record of 16-35 after a three-win season a year ago.