Titans Passed on Amani Hooker Deal — Then Notre Dame-Miami Game Happened

Detailed summary

One of the most talked about trades has been the forever struggling Tennessee Titans sending safety Amani Hooker and a fifth-round pick to the Buffalo Bills. Titans were rumored…

Chaos ensued on Tuesday as the NFL trade deadline hit, and suddenly, some of the league’s top players found themselves in either another part of the country, or staying put, wondering what the freak just went down.

One of the most talked about trades has been the forever struggling Tennessee Titans sending safety Amani Hooker and a fifth-round pick to the Buffalo Bills. Titans were rumored to be trading running back Tony Pollard and wide receiver Calvin Ridley, who both stayed put.

Titans general manager Mike Borgonzi explained to the press on Wednesday how the deal came to be after turning away offers from Bills general manager Brandon Beane for a week.

“You know, so yesterday wrapped up the trade deadline and, you know, we made the difficult decision to move Amani, you know, like just same situation with Jeff, you know, we weren’t looking to move Hook,” Borgonzi said to reporters.

“We had some calls on him, you know, Brandon Beane from Buffalo called me for really the last week on it and I said no at the time. Ran into at the Notre Dame, Miami game the other night, said he’d stay in touch, and, you know, it came together pretty fast. So he called me probably around 11:30 in the morning yesterday, 12, probably noon, and he just came out with an offer and we went back and forth and, you know, we felt like it was the best decision really at the time.”

So a lot more went down at the Miami-Notre Dame game than a “botched” touchdown call.

While offers were on the table for Pollard, none were good enough to part ways from the RB without hurting what’s left of the Titans offense.

With Hooker shivering in the New York cold now, safety Kevin Winston is going to have to step up to the plate more, even though he’s been run over plenty already, but with the help of veteran Tony Adams, this should work out in terms of making it out alive through the rest of the season.

Opening of the article, excerpted from Newsweek. To read the rest, open the article on the publisher's site.