Mike Borgonzi’s move up in the second round of the 2026 NFL Draft put a spotlight on a position battle that already had a strange feel to it. Tennessee spent that pick on Anthony Hill Jr., an athletic linebacker who looks tailor-made for Robert Saleh’s defense, and that suddenly left Cody Barton’s place on the roster looking a lot less secure.
Barton arrived just last offseason to be the green-dot leader of the linebacker room, but a shaky first year, Cedric Gray’s breakout sophomore season in 2026, and Hill’s arrival have turned what once looked like a stable setup into a real question. What used to be a strength - three starting-caliber off-ball linebackers - now looks more like one too many in a defense that lives in nickel and only leans on base looks on first down.
That’s especially true in Saleh’s system. His Cover 3 “Seattle Scheme” asks its linebackers to do a little bit of everything: read quickly, trigger downhill, run sideline to sideline, and survive in coverage when the offense forces them to.
Gray already looks locked into one of those spots, and he profiles as the ideal WILL. That leaves Barton and Hill fighting for the other job.
Hill brings the kind of physical upside that makes defensive coaches dream. He’s explosive, versatile, and has already drawn Fred Warner comparisons since his name was called in the draft.
The catch is that he’s also the rookie in the room, and the source material makes clear he was seen as a somewhat raw prospect. Long term, he looks like the answer at MIKE.
Barton is the opposite kind of player. He’s an eight-year veteran with plenty of scheme experience and a reputation for being sharp mentally, but the athletic limitations show up on tape.
In the run game, he doesn’t move laterally all that well and can struggle to get around blocks. In coverage, he’s serviceable in spot-drop duties, but his lack of burst and flexibility can cap what he can do in a scheme that asks for more than just survival.
Even so, Barton still has a path to the Week 1 job. When the competition is a polished veteran against a raw rookie, experience and football IQ tend to matter. For the quarterback-of-the-defense role in the middle, those traits may give Barton the edge for now.
Both linebackers have drawn positive reviews through OTAs and minicamp, which doesn’t settle much. Training camp opens in late July, and that’s when this battle gets real. Barton and Hill both have something to prove, and both have a shot to lock down their spots.
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