The Kaiir Elam carousel did not stop in New York for long. After the former Buffalo Bills first-round pick visited the Jets as they searched for secondary help, the ex-Florida standout has instead landed in the AFC South, where a different rebuilding team is betting on his pedigree. For Elam, it is another chance to reset his career, this time in a defense that desperately needs answers on the back end.
Per the Titans’ official announcement, Tennessee has signed cornerback Kaiir Elam and waived fellow corner Samuel Womack III ahead of Sunday’s home matchup against the Jacksonville Jaguars.
The move comes barely a week after Elam was released by the Dallas Cowboys, who acquired him in a March 2025 trade with Buffalo. In total, Elam has appeared in 39 games with 19 starts across his stints with the Bills and Cowboys, posting 110 tackles and two interceptions while playing both outside and in zone-heavy looks for two playoff-caliber defenses.
Listed at 6-foot-1 and 191 pounds, Elam brings the size and length Tennessee has been searching for on the perimeter. He logged 460 defensive snaps for Dallas this season before being waived, and the Jets hosted him for a visit earlier this week before the Titans moved to secure his services, according to the team release. Womack, meanwhile, exits after five games and one start in Tennessee, including 22 defensive snaps in Sunday’s loss to the Seahawks.
For a 1-10 Titans team trying to build something around rookie quarterback Cam Ward, shuffling the cornerback room is as much about 2026 as it is about this weekend.
Ward is coming off his first turnover-free outing of the year, a 256-yard, two-touchdown effort that had head coach Mike McCoy praising his progress while challenging him to speed up his decisions and avoid unnecessary hits outside the pocket. The organization clearly wants to see more young pieces trend in the same direction.
Now Elam steps into that developmental lane with a real opportunity: meaningful snaps against Trevor Lawrence and a divisional rival. If he can stabilize one corner spot and tap back into the traits that made him a first-round pick, Tennessee might finally have a secondary building block to pair with whatever they find out about their rookie quarterback over the season’s final stretch.
