Cam Ward's incredible work ethic on full display in surprising way at Titans OTAs, impacting teammates and impressing coaches

Cam Ward is a grinder.

If you’ve paid any attention whatsoever to him throughout the draft process, you’ve probably picked up on this. From stories about him demanding the best work ethic from his teammates quickly after transferring in college, to videos of him practicing in the offseason, his grinder mindset is very evident. And during OTAs, we’ve gotten a glimpse into how he’s already started to impact the Tennessee Titans in this way.

Ward told us in the local media that he’s been arriving to the Titans facility at 5am every morning so far. He and his college teammate Xavier Restrepo did this in college, and now teammates once again as pros, have continued it in Nashville. They’ve convinced a cohort of rookie skill players to join them as well, such as TE Gunnar Helm and Elic Ayomanor.

We’ve also heard that he stays late, sometimes having to be kicked out of the building to get home and get some sleep. His QB coach Bo Hardegree sounded off last week on what Cam has been like in the building so far:

“Everything we expected. He's working really hard every day, improving, taking the coaching. He gets in, he works a lot on his own, which is impressive within the constraints that we have. He works after practice, and he's just looking to improve every day.”

It comes as a serious relief when you aren’t having to ask work ethic questions of your 1st round (let alone, 1st overall pick) quarterback as a rookie. But with all of this extra work this early in the process, Cam’s routine begs the question: is there such thing as too much?

Rookies Avoiding Burnout

Every year around December, we recycle the same narrative in sports talk: how will rookies handle the longer season? Once the college season wraps up, everything beyond that is uncharted waters for most of the new pros in the league. How will they respond physically and mentally? Sometimes that rookie wall hits a guy hard.

I asked Head Coach Brian Callahan about how he manages such a singularly-minded player like Cam, and if he has to safeguard against him doing too much too early. He gave a thoughtful answer that I’d like to include in full:

“Yeah, I've had that conversation. You know, everybody always starts out out of the gate pretty hot, but you start to get into the actual routine and you understand how long of a season it is; the marathon that it is for young players from the time they finish their college season to the time they finish the NFL season.

I've made that point to him, and I'm not telling him what to do. I'm just making the point that there's a lot ahead of him that he's not aware of yet when it comes to this the length of the week-to-week-to-week grind that comes up for these guys. and it really is a marathon. This is a long run for these young players, and all of them have to have the same sort of mindset that you're trying to get better every day and trying to put the work in that’s required. But there's also that element of how this is going to go all the way into January every day for the next however-many months, and there is a bit of pace that's probably required.

So they learn, they figure it out, but you try to help them and give them advice and point it out when you can. But I have no problem with guys trying to get the work in.”

You don’t know what you don’t know, as they say. And it’s Cam Ward’s extensive, documented history of impossibly hard work that puts me at ease that he’ll be able to pace himself. Though, burn out is always a risk, and it’s something to keep an eye on.

Ultimately, I think every Titans fan would take a worker who might need to be calmed down a bit than one who isn’t pulling his weight.