Are the Tennessee Titans taking Cam Ward because he’s the worthy 1st overall pick? Or are they taking him because they think he’s the best QB in this uninspiring class and they just have to draft one?
This is the question I've gotten the most in the past couple weeks, since it's become clear that Cam's their guy. So here’s my answer:
I think that he's the guy that a team should take if they need a quarterback and have the number one overall pick, because he's worthy of being that number one overall pick. Not just this year; he’s the caliber of player you could justify taking here in any given draft.
And the answer to how the Titans feel about it, based on what I know, is that they fully believe that he is that guy. This is not a decision born of desperation at all. They had options clearly available to them in free agency and even before the Combine, when there were trade talks, and they could have easily been in on the Sam Donald conversation or even the Matthew Stafford conversation. They could’ve been in on Russell Wilson, or Justin Fields, or Aaron Rodgers.
They didn't even bark up those tree a little bit. Those could have been players they were involved with, and they weren't, because they were sold on this guy. Cam Ward.
They have more than one reason to like Cam as much as they do, obviously. they watched his tape and saw star potential. They did their due diligence on his background. They believe that as a player on film, the guy is a very talented QB prospect.
But the reason that sticks out most goes all the way back to the conversation that I had with Brian Callahan in my interview with him in January, where he talked about the organization's emphasis on finding a guy with the “it-factor” nervous system that they had been so dearly lacking with Will Levis.
We talk about teams all the time making dramatic pendulum swings on certain things they’re unhappy with. When you're sick and tired of one thing, sometimes you go all the way in the other direction. Sometimes that's healthy, and sometimes it's not. But I think the Titans this year are saying in a healthy manner, “we are fed up with a guy that when push comes to shove, when the bullets start flying, they sink instead of swim. We want a guy that leaps out of the water and ascends when things get tough.”
That's obviously so much easier said than done, finding a guy like that. But when teams find that guy, we see what happens. Those are the players who become great and single-handedly revolutionize franchises.
And so the Titans were determined to go find a quarterback that fit that bill. This is why I think their meeting with Ward at the Combine, and then a week later when they had him in for the full day on a 30 visit, was the turning point for them. That’s when they went from “we're considering all our options, we really like some of these non-quarterbacks, and we really like the idea of potentially trading down” to “send us your kingdom or else we're not talking.”
That's because when they met with Cam Ward, they had high expectations for him going into those meetings. And despite those high expectations, he still managed to blow them out of the water.
He impressed them as a football mind, as a guy on the whiteboard, and as a guy in a room trying to lead and inspire a group of people. He gave them every green flag they were looking for.
And I think that the vibe for everybody in that room that had just dealt with a year of Levis was “yeah, that’s a breath of fresh air. Holy cow. This is what we've been looking for.”
That infatuation was very real and pretty instant. And on tape, they believe this guy's the real deal. They like his arm. They think he's a good athlete. They think that he's a strong decision maker. They like that he won everywhere that he went in college. And they like that he's a guy that still seems to be ascending in his development.
All of those things are the foundation for the cherry on top: They think this guy has the nervous system they're looking for. You can't manufacture that. You can't teach it. It's really, really hard to find. And when you think you’ve found it as a team evaluating prospects in the draft, you have to go and take it.
