From 2019 through 2021, the Tennessee Titans had a regular-season record of 32-17, which was the sixth-best in the NFL. There was a point in time. not too long ago, when this franchise looked like a Super Bowl contender, especially in the 2019 season, when they got all the way to the AFC Championship Game, losing 35-24 to the Kansas City Chiefs. In 2020, with quarterback Ryan Tannehill playing at his highest possible level, and Derrick Henry running for more than 2,000 yards, the Titans had one of the best offenses in football.
And then, it all started to fall apart. Tannehill regressed, the A.J. Brown trade in April, 2022 was an absolute disaster, and Henry was deemed fungible following the 2023 season — which, based on his 2024 performance with the Baltimore Ravens, was obviously not the case.
Other personnel moves backfired, and 2024's 3-14 season was the ultimate result. That record gave the Titans the first overall pick in the 2025 draft, and it wasn't exactly a surprise that Tennessee went with Miami quarterback Cam Ward as the selection.
It was an easy call for head coach Brian Callahan and new general manager Mike Borgonzi. In the 2024 season, Ward completed 305 of 454 passes for 4,313 yards, 39 touchdowns, seven interceptions, and a passer rating of 119.9. The former zero-star recruit, whose collegiate journey had taken him from Incarnate Word to Washington State to Miami, also ran the ball 44 times for 336 yards and four touchdowns.
For all the talk about Ward's ability to run around and make plays outside of structure, which is an important thing in the modern game...
...it gets lost in the sauce that Ward was the NCAA's best passer from the pocket last season.
“I think my best trait is winning from the pocket, and I got better at that over my years of college,” Ward said at the scouting combine. “At the end of the day as a quarterback, you can't rely on scramble drills and having to win out of structure, because if you can't win in the pocket you’ll never be successful.”
This will be a balm to a Titans organization that got pretty tired of Will Levis' daredevil act last season.
"There's a like to like about him," Callahan said of Ward after the pick was made. "You can tell he came from a really good family, he's been raised right. He has a really good personality, he's fun to talk to, he's fun to be around. But he has a serious side, he's focused, he's determined. It's important to him. He wants to be a really good player. He has the right mix of the [funny] and seriousness. He's been really fun to get to know."
It also helps that Ward has been very good under the most adverse circumstances. When pressured last season, he completed 53 of 105 passes for 803 yards, nine touchdowns, four interceptions, and a passer rating of 88.7. Player performance splits when pressured and not are red flags if things fall off too much, and that's not the case for Ward. He strikes an excellent balance between structure and chaos.
Given the nature of his new offensive line, that will be important. The Titans signed former Pittsburgh Steelers left tackle Dan Moore Jr. to a four-year, $82 million contract with $50 million guaranteed this offseason despite the fact that Moore led the NFL in sacks allowed last season with 12. JC Latham, Tennessee's rookie first-round right tackle in 2024, gave up seven sacks of his own, and 47 total pressures overall. Veteran guard Kevin Zeitler should keep things in line and help Ward with the protection calls, but protection overall could take a minute to sort itself out.
Things are a bit better at receiver. Calvin Ridley is a legit No. 1 target without question, Van Jefferson and Tyler Lockett are nice veteran free-agency additions, Ward will be reunited with Xavier Restrepo, his favorite receiver at Miami last season, as the Titans picked Restrepo up as an undrafted free agent, and you should keep an eye on Stanford's Elic Ayomanor, who the team nabbed in the fourth round. At 6-foot-2 and 206 pounds, Ayomanor can be a contested-catch monster, and he's one of the few NCAA receivers who can claim to have gotten the best of Travis Hunter, the cornerback.
Callahan knows that there will be bumps in the road when the Titans and Ward get past minicamps and training camp, and his young quarterback has to face NFL defenses for the first time. But he's encouraged by what he's seen.
"It's just the recognition part, understanding what's being thrown at him from a defensive perspective," Callahan said on June 4. "The protection game is always really important, so you're getting reps at that. [Tuesday was] a big third down day, so he'll see lots of different pressures, understanding where your answers are. Those things have progressed. Happy with that process so far.
"And then he's seeing different types of space and field defense that—throws that maybe he might've made in college that don't show up in the NFL the same way and he's learning from those. I think it's been great. He's had a lot of learning that has occurred from just the act of doing and things that he's maybe used to doing that are different at this level. That's always for young quarterbacks the case, it's always going to feel different. So pleased with where he's at, he's picking it up pretty quickly as far as the mental part goes, and we're learning every day he's out here."
The Titans have a ways to go before they'll be Super Bowl-conversant again, but if they nailed the most important position, everything else will be a lot easier.
