The NFL Schedule release doesn't happen in full until 7pm CST on Wednesday evening, but that doesn't stop the league from intentionally leaking dozens of games ahead of the final reveal to build hype. And Tuesday night, they shared where the 1st overall pick of the 2025 NFL Draft will begin his career: in Denver.
The Tennessee Titans will head to face the Denver Broncos in Week 1, a fun matchup that should provide a strong test for rookie Cam Ward in his debut. The Broncos were arguably the best defense in the entire league by the end of the 2024 season, and this offseason they've added veteran LB Dre Greenlaw, S Talanoa Hufanga, and drafted star Texas CB Jahdae Baron in the 1st round. That's not exactly a soft landing spot for a rookie QB!
The cherry on top to sweeten the prestige of Ward's debut with Tennessee is the fact that the game will be played in the late afternoon window. A 3:05pm CST start is a rarity for the small market, oft-disregarded Titans. This is a team that played just one primetime game and one late-afternoon game in 2024. Through one week of 2025, they'll already be halfway towards matching that.
Cam Ward Comparison To Bo Nix Week 1
Throughout the pre-draft process, a common talking point was to compare this year's down QB class to a very strong 2024 group. A record six passers were taken in the first twelve picks of last year's class, so the question everybody wanted an answer for was this: where would Cam Ward (and Shedeur Sanders) have gone if you combined the classes?
Answers amongst analysts were split. If you'd asked me, I would've told you Cam Ward was comfortably QB3 or QB4 in last year's class, depending on your stance on Maye and Daniels at the time.
Many analysts had him a clear tier below the top three in that class: Williams, Maye and Daniels. But there was real disagreement on whether he represented a tier subdividing the class, firmly ahead of Penix, Nix and McCarthy, or whether he would have been in the thick of the debate with those QBs. In fact, some evaluators had him as the definitive QB7, firmly behind each and every one of the QBs taken in the First Round of the 2024 NFL Draft.
So it's a nice narrative opener to the season for us to get one of these QBs against Ward out of the gate. Nix vs. Ward will be a big talking point heading into this one. Now, will the two players actually compete directly? No, and that's what makes QB "battles" kind of silly. But for better or for worse, the direct comparison is typically made anyways.
Will it be a "fair fight" considering this is Ward's rookie debut? No. But life isn't fair, and the NFL is certainly no exception to that rule. Cam Ward has a big opportunity to come out of the gates swinging, making a serious statement if he can survive such a brutal defense in Week 1. But fair or not, he's going to be compared to the veteran passer across from him immediately too.
