Sneed’s deal follows his trade to the Titans, in which Kansas City accepted a 2025 third-round pick and a swap of 2024 seventh-round selections in order to gain some return on the cornerback who was destined to cash in elsewhere. The picks may not end up being worth trading Sneed, but this — i.e., maximizing contributions from a star on a rookie deal before shipping him elsewhere when it’s time to pay him — is how the Chiefs remain perennially competitive. They prepared for such a move two years ago when selecting eventual All-Pro Trent McDuffie, and used multiple other picks to restock the secondary (which had also lost Charvarius Ward in 2022) since then.
Tennessee, meanwhile, receives a fourth-round cornerback who has certainly outplayed his draft slot. Sneed has won two Super Bowls with the Chiefs and been more than open to doing whatever defensive coordinator Steve Spagnuolo has asked him to do, playing a number of key roles along the way. He’s also coming off of another excellent season, in which he recorded a career-high 14 passes defensed and didn’t allow a single touchdown, despite seeing 90 targets as the nearest defender, per Next Gen Stats.
The Next Gen Stats realm is, in fact, where Sneed tends to thrive, which remained the case in 2023: Including playoff games, Sneed finished first in completion percentage allowed (48.2) among those seeing at least 80 targets. He was a top-two finisher in yards per target allowed and passer rating allowed, too, as part of a Chiefs defense that proved itself as the backbone of Kansas City’s run to consecutive Super Bowl titles.
Sneed will attempt to carry over that winning pedigree to Tennessee, a place that certainly could use a jolt under a new regime.