Ernest Jones trade grades: Who won the Seahawks-Titans deal?
The Tennessee Titans had a busy Wednesday.
It started with the framework of a trade that shipped DeAndre Hopkins to the Kansas City Chiefs for a conditional Day 3 draft pick. It rolled on when general manager Ran Carthon dealt a player for whom he'd traded less than two months earlier.
The Titans shipped linebacker Ernest Jones, acquired from the Los Angeles Rams in August, back to the NFC West in a deal with the Seattle Seahawks. It's a move that signals Tennessee's waning interest in the 2024 season as well as its ability to sign the 24-year-old to a long-term contract in 2025.
Let's break the deal down and make a rash immediate judgment over who got the better end.
The Ernest Jones IV trade details
Seahawks get: LB Ernest Jones IV
Titans get: LB Jerome Baker, 2025 fourth round pick
Seahawks grade
Jones is an effective off-ball linebacker who is roughly average in coverage but excels against the run. His 19 percent run stop rate in 2023, per NFL-plus, was best in the NFL. He can also add value as an occasional pass rusher, though that's not what Tennessee asked him to do. After 14 pressures and 4.5 sacks in his final season as a Ram, Jones is at one and zero, respectively, in 2024.
He'll be an asset for Mike Macdonald's 18th-ranked run defense. He's three years younger than Baker and has never had a missed tackle rate above 6.4 percent -- Baker, for comparison, clocked in at 9.1 this fall. The price is steep for a player headed to free agency next offseason, but it's a smart acquisition for a team in the playoff hunt.
Grade: B
Titans grade
Dealing Jones suggests he wasn't in the Titans' plans. His brief foray in Nashville suggested a slight backslide from his solid 2023. So, despite adding him eight weeks earlier, Carthon shipped him back west.
The value here was strong. Tennessee took a player it acquired for a swap of sixth and fifth round draft picks and traded him for a fourth-rounder. It got Baker in the process, a veteran who can provide useful play in a lost 2024 and slide off the team's books in 2025.
There was no sunk cost for the Titans; this was flipping an asset that hadn't really appreciated on the field. Jones is a talented player, but if he didn't fit, he didn't fit.
Grade: A-
More NFL!
NFL mock draft from Sports Illustrated has a QB not named Shedeur Sanders to the Panthers
The 2024 NFL trade deadline buyers and sellers, across all 32 teams
This article originally appeared on For The Win: Ernest Jones trade grades: Who won the Seahawks-Titans deal?
