NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) — The Tennessee Titans are spending big in free agency for the second time in three years hoping more money and more talent helps their latest new coach turn around a struggling franchise.
The Titans opened the NFL negotiating window Monday by agreeing to terms with eight new players led by wide receiver Wan'Dale Robinson, cornerback Alontae Taylor and defensive lineman John Franklin-Myers in a spending spree worth at least a reported $270 million.
Robinson’s four-year contract is reportedly worth $78 million, while Franklin-Myers has a reported three-year deal worth up to $63 million.
A person familiar with the terms told The Associated Press that Taylor’s deal is $60 million over three years. That person spoke on condition of anonymity because agreements cannot become official until the new league year begins Wednesday.
The Titans also added cornerback Cor'Dale Flott, tight end Daniel Bellinger, quarterback Mitchell Trubisky, center Austin Schlottman and guard Cordell Volson, according to a second person familiar with the deals told the AP on condition of anonymity. Agreements also cannot become official until players pass physicals.
Tennessee entered Monday with the second-most salary cap space in the NFL to help new coach Robert Saleh as he takes over a team that went 3-14 last season. The Titans will also open a new enclosed stadium for the 2027 season trying to snap a string of four straight losing seasons with needs all over the roster.
Tennessee traded for pass rusher Jeremiah Johnson on Feb. 26. Johnson had been lobbying the Titans to add his old Jets' teammate Franklin-Myers, a duo who played for Saleh in New York and now are reunited with defensive line coach Aaron Whitecotton, who had that same job with the Jets.
“Time to take my recruiter hat off. We went 1/1 chat,” Johnson wrote on social media.
Franklin-Myers joins Pro Bowl defensive tackle Jeffery Simmons and brings his 34 career sacks. Franklin-Myers is coming off the best back-to-back seasons of his career with a combined 14 1/2 sacks for Denver. Simmons had his own reaction to that deal with a pair of eyeball emojis and “It's up!!” on social media.
The Titans also reunited some former Giants with new offensive coordinator Brian Daboll.
Robinson, 25, last season became the first player 5-foot-8 or shorter to eclipse 1,000 yards receiving since 5-7 Richard Johnson in 1989 and just the third since the 1970 AFL-NFL merger, finishing with 1,014 yards on 92 catches.
Rookies Elic Ayomanor and Chimere Dike led Tennessee receivers in catches, receiving yards and touchdowns last season with Calvin Ridley limited to only seven games by injuries. The Titans still have to decide whether to use the out in Ridley's contract to give themselves more cap space.
The Titans also can clear more cap space if they release L’Jarius Sneed from the contract he got when he was traded to Tennessee in March 2024. Sneed has played only 12 games for the Titans with no interceptions, making improving the secondary a must.
Taylor is a Tennessee native who played at the University of Tennessee. The 49th pick overall in 2022 started 53 games with four interceptions at New Orleans. Flott beat out Deonte Banks for the Giants' No. 2 cornerback job last season and has started 37 games.
Daboll also got Bellinger to help quarterback Cam Ward, the No. 1 overall pick last April. Bellinger brings size at 6-foot-6 and 255 pounds to an offense that could lose its top receiver last year in tight end Chig Okonkwo to free agency. Bellinger has 88 catches for 934 yards and four touchdowns in his career.
The Titans have quarterback Will Levis going into the final year of his rookie deal, but Levis missed last season after announcing he was having shoulder surgery right before his team reported for training camp. Veteran Brandon Allen was Ward's backup in 2025.
Now it will be Trubisky, himself the No. 2 overall pick of the 2017 draft by Chicago. Trubisky is 31-26 as a starter who has thrown for 13,028 yards in nine seasons with 78 touchdowns and 48 interceptions. He also was with Pittsburgh in 2022 and 2023.
AP Pro Football Writer Rob Maaddi in Tampa, Florida, contributed to this report.
AP NFL: https://apnews.com/hub/NFL
Tennessee Titans head coach Robert Saleh speaks during a press conference at the NFL football scouting combine in Indianapolis, Tuesday, Feb. 24, 2026. (AP Photo/Michael Conroy)
FILE- New Orleans Saints cornerback Alontae Taylor runs off the field before an NFL football game against the New England Patriots, Oct. 12, 2025, in New Orleans. (AP Photo/Ella Hall, File)
FILE - New York Giants wide receiver Wan'Dale Robinson runs a route against the Detroit Lions during an NFL football game in Detroit, Nov. 23, 2025. (AP Photo/Rick Osentoski, File)
PHOENIX (AP) — The Republican leader of Arizona's state Senate said Monday he has handed over records related to the 2020 presidential election to the FBI in the latest sign that the Trump administration is acting on the president's longstanding falsehoods about a race he lost to Democrat Joe Biden.
Senate President Warren Petersen said in a social media post that he complied “late last week” with a federal grand jury subpoena for records related to a controversial audit of the election in Maricopa County that had been ordered by legislative Republicans.
“The FBI has the records,” Petersen said.
He did not immediately respond to requests for additional comment, and a spokesperson for Senate Republicans said in an email that Petersen “does not have anything to add outside of his X post at this time.” The FBI office in Phoenix did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
It marks the second time this year that the FBI has obtained records related to the 2020 election from the most populous county in a presidential battleground state, both of which Trump lost as he sought reelection. In January, the FBI seized ballots and other records from Georgia's Fulton County, which includes Atlanta, after the Justice Department sought a search warrant from a judge. The search warrant affidavit showed that the request relied on years-old claims, many of which had been thoroughly investigated and found to have no connection to widespread fraud.
Arizona Attorney General Kris Mayes, a Democrat, issued a scathing statement in response to Petersen's post, noting that multiple audits, independent investigations and legal challenges related to the 2020 presidential election found no evidence of widespread fraud that could have affected the outcome.
“Warren Petersen knows all of this. He has known it for years. He spread false stories of election fraud in 2020, and he remains an unrepentant election denier,” Mayes said. “What the Trump administration appears to be pursuing now is not a legitimate law enforcement inquiry. It is the weaponization of federal law enforcement in service of crackpots and lies.”
A firm hired by Republican lawmakers spent six months in 2021 searching for evidence of fraud in the previous year's presidential election, a process experts said was marred by bias and a flawed methodology. It explored outlandish conspiracy theories, such as dedicating time to checking for bamboo fibers on ballots to see if they were secretly shipped in from Asia.
The audit ended without producing proof to support former President Donald Trump’s false claims of a stolen election — and in fact found that Biden received 360 more votes than stated in the certified results for Maricopa County, which includes Phoenix.
The firm, Cyber Ninjas, also acknowledged that there were “no substantial differences” between its hand count of the ballots and the official count.
Previous reviews of the 2.1 million ballots by nonpartisan professionals who followed state law found no significant problem with the 2020 election in Maricopa County, which was run by Republicans then and now. Biden won the county by 45,000 votes and went on to win Arizona by 10,500 votes.
Federal officials took different routes to obtain election records in the two states. The Georgia case involved a judicially-approved search warrant that required the FBI to articulate grounds that probable cause exists to believe a crime was committed. In Arizona, the FBI relied on subpoenas, a law enforcement maneuver that does not require judicial sign-off or for prosecutors to assert that there’s probable cause of a crime.
The investigations into the 2020 election come as the Justice Department has clashed with a number of states, including some controlled by Republicans, over access to detailed voter data that includes names, dates of birth, addresses and partial Social Security numbers. Election officials have expressed concerns that providing the information would violate both state and federal data privacy laws, and that it could be used to remove people from state voter rolls.
Arizona is among the states the Justice Department has sued to obtain the voter information. Secretary of State Adrian Fontes, a Democrat, suggested that at least some Maricopa County voter files were among the records Petersen gave the FBI. In a statement Monday, Fontes said his office was considering legal options "to secure personal voter information in the 2020 data that was shared. We view this latest action as a move by the U.S. Department of Justice to undermine the legal process.”
Associated Press writer Eric Tucker in Washington contributed to this report.
FILE - Supporters of President Donald Trump rally outside the Maricopa County Recorder's Office, Friday, Nov. 6, 2020, in Phoenix. (AP Photo/Ross D. Franklin)
FILE - The main entrance at the Maricopa County Elections Department in Phoenix, Sept. 8, 2022. (AP Photo/Ross D. Franklin, File)
