NFL offseason power rankings: No. 28 Tennessee Titans will figure out soon if Cam Ward is the answer
Cam Ward got a pass for his rookie season. Most quarterbacks have no idea what that's like.
Ward, the first overall pick of the 2025 NFL Draft, had some hideous stats last season. The Tennessee Titans were 31st in passing EPA per play and 31st in success rate, ahead of only the Browns and their treacherous quarterback situation. Ward was 33rd of 38 qualified quarterbacks in DVOA and 36th of 38 in DYAR (defensive-adjusted yards above replacement). His Pro Football Focus grade was 36th of 38, ahead of the Browns' two rookies. He was down near the bottom of the league in successful plays per snap and explosive plays per snap, via Yahoo Sports' Nate Tice. The Titans were 30th in points scored and 31st in yards gained.
Most quarterbacks would have been ripped endlessly for that season. Don't believe it? In every one of those stats above except DVOA, J.J. McCarthy of the Vikings ranked ahead of Ward. Think of how McCarthy was mercilessly slammed all last season.
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It's fine to give a rookie some grace, especially when it's the No. 1 overall pick who was thrown into a bad situation. And the 2025 Titans offered Ward a miserable situation to start his career. They made a terrible decision to stick with Brian Callahan at head coach, and he lasted only six games into last season. The supporting cast around Ward was bad. He had some scintillating highlights and played better late in the season.
Also, Tennessee was well under the radar. The Titans didn't play a single standalone game all season. Those are the tangible reasons everyone was hesitant to criticize Ward. But make no mistake: Ward absolutely got a pass, when we'd be asking serious questions about other quarterbacks in the same spot.
That leads to an interesting second season. Ward's talent was evident even if the play-to-play consistency waned. This year, the situation is better. Brian Daboll comes in as offensive coordinator, and even though he failed as Giants head coach, everyone believes in his ability to develop quarterbacks after his work in Buffalo with Josh Allen. The team invested heavily in the roster on both sides and used the fourth pick on receiver Carnell Tate. The overall operation around Ward should be much better this season.
"For Cam, the best way to develop a quarterback is to give him a team that doesn't make him feel like he has to be Superman, at least early on," new Titans head coach Robert Saleh said, via the Titans' site.
As for Ward, the new coaching staff has gushed about his talent and work ethic, both of which were evident in his rise from Incarnate Word through a record-setting college career to being the first pick of the NFL Draft.
"I know I am going to have success," Ward said after last season, via the team's site.
The 2026 Titans are practically starting at square one, and that includes their second-year quarterback. They did almost nothing well last season in a 3-14 campaign that could've been worse. The Titans had a miraculous win over a bad Cardinals team, and that was their only victory through 12 games. Then they got a win over a Browns team that was even worse than Tennessee on offense and a win against a deflated Chiefs team that had just lost Patrick Mahomes to a torn ACL. This time around, there's a new head coach, new coordinators and at least 10 new additions projected to start on offense or defense. It's close to a brand-new team.
We'll find out a lot more about Ward this season. If he repeats his rookie campaign with a revamped team around him, he's not avoiding criticism again.
Offseason grade
The Titans weren't messing around in free agency. They led the NFL in spending, with $325.7 million in total contracts signed by 23 free agents, according to Spotrac. But there is some worry that the team just leaned into players that Robert Saleh or Brian Daboll knew from previous stops. Among those players are receiver Wan'Dale Robinson, defensive lineman John Franklin-Myers, cornerback Cor'Dale Flott, backup quarterback Mitchell Trubisky, tight end Daniel Bellinger, center Austin Schlottmann and safety Tony Adams. All of them were coached by Saleh or Daboll over the past few years.
Were they the best players available or just the ones Saleh and Daboll knew? If the latter is the case, that's a lazy way to build a roster. It's not like the Giants or Jets — the teams the Titans leaned into most — have been any good lately.
The one big-ticket player the Titans signed with no direct tie to either coach is cornerback Alontae Taylor. Flott, Franklin-Myers, Robinson and Taylor each got a least $15 million per season to join Tennessee.
The draft brought along two first-round picks: receiver Carnell Tate at No. 4 and edge defender Keldric Faulk at No. 31. No reputable mock draft had Tate going as high as No. 4; some didn't have him as the top receiver in the class. His selection will be dissected if he never turns into a No. 1 receiver in the NFL. He was never a No. 1 at Ohio State, though he played with some exceptional teammates.
There was also a trade of promising young defensive tackle T'Vondre Sweat to the Jets for defensive end Jermaine Johnson II. Again, is Johnson the better player or just the one Saleh knows from coaching him in New York? Johnson has just 13 sacks in four NFL seasons.
Overall, the reliance on familiar faces in building the roster was a bit much, but the Titans did significantly improve a dreadful roster.
Grade: A-
Quarterback report
Brian Daboll has a reputation as a quarterback developer. That comes from Josh Allen's rapid improvement in 2020 and 2021, when Daboll was the Buffalo Bills' offensive coordinator. Daboll got the New York Giants' head-coaching job and the Titans' offensive coordinator job mostly off of Allen's improvement years ago. Could it be that Daboll just happened to coach a generational talent?
The Titans are betting otherwise, putting Daboll in charge of leading Ward to a similar turnaround. The relationship between the two is hugely important to the Titans' outlook over the next few years. So far, Daboll sounds impressed with what he sees.
"He is a young professional," Daboll said of Ward, via the team's site. "He wants to be great. He is instinctive. When we are just watching the tape, he is able to communicate the things that he sees and why he did certain things when we watch the tape from last year. When we are installing the new system to him, concepts and things like that, he is able to pick things up very quickly. It has been awesome to work with him."
Ward's talent isn't in doubt. He was the first pick for a good reason. He's not the first quarterback to have a rough rookie season, either. The talent around him has been upgraded. Now it's time to see if Daboll has more quarterback-whisperer magic.
Odds breakdown
From Yahoo's Ben Fawkes: "After going a near-impossible 2-15 against the spread in 2024, the Titans were better last year for bettors (7-9-1 ATS), but they ended up with an identical 3-14 record. Tennessee has reasons for optimism (see: Cam Ward) and a new head coach in Robert Saleh, but the Titans are still favored in only two games, have a win total of 6.5 and don't appear on prime time for the second straight season."
Yahoo's fantasy take
From Yahoo's Scott Pianowski: "Opportunity is a big chunk of any running back's fantasy value, and it's possible Tony Pollard's role might make him an underrated pick this summer. He has proven to be more durable and effective than Tyjae Spears, and although rookie Nicholas Singleton has his supporters, he was merely a fifth-round draft pick. Brian Daboll built top-five rushing offenses in two of his four years with the Giants, and he'll look to work that magic again here. It would be a stretch to call Pollard a likely bell cow, but he has a reasonable chance at 300 touches, which would provide a nifty fantasy backboard."
Stat to remember
Net yards per play, which is yards per play on offense minus yards per play allowed on defense, is a simple and effective measure of an NFL team. In this metric, the Titans were by far the worst team in the NFL last season. The Titans' yards per play differential was -1.27, and no other team was worse than -1.03 according to OddsShark. That's a massive gap.
Other stats told a similar story. The Titans were 30th on offense in EPA per play and 28th on defense. In DVOA, they were 28th on offense and 29th on defense. Tennessee's passer rating was 29th, and the passer rating allowed was 30th. Only three teams had a point differential of -133 or worse, and those three teams lapped the field: Jets at -204, Titans at -194 and Raiders at -191.
Pick a stat, and it will tell the story of the Titans being an incompetent team on both sides of the ball in 2025. Just getting to mediocrity this season would be a huge improvement from where the Titans were the past two seasons, in which they posted a 6-28 record.
Burning question: Can the Titans' defense make a huge jump?
The Titans' offense will get a lot of attention, with Cam Ward throwing to No. 4 pick Carnell Tate. But there could also be a big improvement on defense. Robert Saleh didn't work out as the Jets' head coach, but anyone working for Jets owner Woody Johnson has a good excuse for not winning.
Saleh is unquestionably one of the NFL's best defensive coaches. Before last season, five of his previous six defenses finished among the NFL's top five teams in yards allowed. Last season, the 49ers were decimated by injuries on defense but remained solid enough to help the team to the playoffs. It was a remarkable job of coaching by Saleh. This season, the Titans have at least six new additions projected to start on defense, including both cornerbacks and three-quarters of the line. That doesn't even count first-round pick Keldric Faulk, who will play a big role.
The Titans were bad on defense last season, other than stalwart tackle Jeffery Simmons, who signed a new massive extension in the offseason, but this season's defense will look entirely different. Tennessee will be better on that side of the ball. The only question is how long it will take Saleh to lift that unit to a top-10 level.
Best-case scenario
The Titans are the first team in this countdown to not have their season outlook centered on the 2027 NFL Draft class at quarterback. (We think so anyway … there's a very, very small chance Cam Ward is so bad this season that the Titans have to think twice, but we won't dwell on that here.) Ward didn't have a great rookie season, but we've seen many quarterbacks take a massive leap in Year 2. We don't need to look far back, either; Ward could have a sophomore season like Caleb Williams or Drake Maye just had. He doesn't need to finish second in MVP voting like Maye, but a significant improvement would put the Titans on the right track.
It's too much to think the Titans could win the division like Williams' Bears or Maye's Patriots last season, but they could far surpass their ranking here. Robert Saleh was a good hire and represents a massive upgrade. When you spend more than $300 million in free agency, the roster will improve. The Titans are far behind teams such as the Jaguars and Texans and even the Colts in the AFC South, but they can close that gap quickly and be a playoff contender if Ward looks like a different player. And he might.
Nightmare scenario
There have been a lot of words about Cam Ward in this preview, but it's hard to avoid. He's a massively talented player who had a terrible rookie season, and this season is the first big pivot point of his career. What if he's the same inconsistent, frenetic player we saw last season?
The rest of the operation is coming along as you'd hope for a rebuilding team. There's a new coaching staff, plenty of high-priced free agents to fill massive holes in the roster and some interesting young talent. But without the quarterback piece of the puzzle, everything else will stall. It's scary to think that the Titans could find themselves with a top-three pick in 2027 and a real question of whether to pull the plug on the Ward experiment after just two seasons and consider one of the quarterbacks in next year's draft.
That's not a likely outcome by any means, but we can't be absolutely sure yet that Ward is the answer. How he plays in his second season is a massive story in the NFL, and it's everything for the Titans.
The crystal ball says …
It's an exciting time for the Titans. This is the last season in their current stadium, and they move a few yards east into their new, $2.2 billion stadium for the 2027 season. Cam Ward is an exciting talent, and the Titans are showing a strong desire to build around him before they open the new stadium.
The Titans aren't yet to the point that they can compete for an AFC South title. That will take another offseason. They were truly awful last season, and even a massive improvement might not get them to the playoffs.
But what we'll see this season is a team headed in the right direction, led by a young quarterback who will show why he was the first pick of the draft. Another losing season might be depressing for some franchises, but the Titans will be able to feel pretty good about what comes next.
