The Tennessee Titans selected Cam Ward with the first pick in the 2025 NFL draft Thursday night, completing his journey from high school quarterback with one Division I scholarship offer to this year’s top NFL selection. But now Ward, the all-time leader in D-1 touchdown passes, faces an even more difficult road ahead: one where he’ll attempt to make the Tennessee Titans fun.
The Titans play in Nashville, literally called Music City, but over the past 20 years they’ve been the NFL’s equivalent of elevator music: relaxing background noise that’s neither offensive nor memorable. Tennessee had five 8-8 seasons under head coach Jeff Fisher from 1996 to 2009. They also had five losing seasons under Fisher, and then, once he left in 2011, four consecutive 9-7 seasons under Mike Mularkey and Mike Vrabel. Since 2000, the Titans’ record including playoffs is 204-214, which ranks 16th in the NFL in winning percentage, or exactly middle of the road in a 32-team league. Aside from some epic Derrick Henry seasons, some legendary indie coaching performances from Vrabel, and the year Steve McNair split the MVP award with Peyton Manning, Tennessee has basically embodied Brad Pitt’s instructions to Matt Damon in Ocean’s Eleven: “Be specific but not memorable, be funny but don't make ’em laugh. He's got to like you then forget you the moment you've left his side.”
Part of the general apathy surrounding the Titans is just due to time. The Houston Oilers moved to Nashville in 1997 and rebranded as the Titans in 1999. The University of Tennessee Volunteers, meanwhile, the much more popular football team in the state, has been around since 1794. Culturally, the Volunteers are in Tennessee’s blood. The Titans are merely in the water. The Volunteers were beating the Titans in TV ratings a decade ago, and while things have evened out a bit since then, that’s likely just due to the NFL’s rising tide. The Titans’ ratings last season were an all-time low for the team. They claimed the drop was due to a change in the methodology of measurement, but they were last in the NFL—and also they just haven’t been good.
Tennessee drafted quarterback Will Levis in the second round just two years ago, and since then, he’s spent his time on the field turning interceptions and fumbles into performance art. You’d think Levis’s quarterbacking would be must-see television, like rubbernecking at a car accident on the highway, but since Levis took over as the team’s quarterback, Titans TV ratings have fallen 33 percent. The Levis era was embodied last September when cameras caught Titans head coach Brian Callahan asking Levis, “What the fuck are you doing?” The Titans went 5-16 in Levis’s starts across the past two seasons, and the team was dismal enough last year that they benched the QB in favor of Mason Rudolph and finished the campaign with a 3-14 record and the first pick in the draft.
One of the reasons Ward is such a clear pick for Tennessee is his calmness—an incredible contrast to Levis’s impulsiveness. But Ward’s playmaking pizzazz also offers Tennessee something that only Henry has given the team in the past 20 years: excitement.
Ward is a skilled prospect in a number of respects. He has the ability to stand firm against pressure, step up into the pocket, and cycle through reads to get to the open guy, which is how he became Miami’s single-season leader in passing yards, completions, and touchdown passes.
Here is a good encapsulation of Ward’s skill set in a single play in his final college game, the Pop-Tarts Bowl (the one where the mascot jumps into a toaster and the winners eat it). Ward faces immediate pressure from the inside linebacker, yet he steps up in the pocket and drops a throw into the receiver’s hands for a first down. Ward does a great job extending plays and keeping his eyes downfield, scrambling to throw rather than scrambling to run.
In contrast, Levis handles pressure … a different way.
It’s not just the immediate pressure where Ward thrives and Levis wilts, but also in resetting after escaping defenders.
You won’t hear Ward be compared to Lamar Jackson often. But when you watch Ward effortlessly bypass two defenders literally on the Louisville logo, it is hard not to think of Jackson’s college highlights.
You can see why the Titans didn’t trade out of this pick.
Ward has nothing resembling Jackson’s speed or agility. But he does have Jackson’s complete and utter indifference to oncoming pressure. Ward has a borderline irrational confidence that he can evade rushers. And he also has a miniature Ben Roethlisberger-like ability to shrug off defenders, sometimes looking like he has tree roots holding in the ground and helping him stay upright. He isn’t that fast, but he certainly has the athleticism to extend plays in the pocket and find receivers downfield.
Ward’s arm strength may not be elite, but there is no question it is NFL-caliber. And combined with all of his other tools, it leaves a quarterback that may never reach the top tier of Josh Allen, Jackson, or Patrick Mahomes, but has a serious chance to be a second-tier guy along the lines of Dak Prescott or a better Geno Smith. The theme of his tape is that Ward is always resetting, and rarely retreating.
The Titans are going to need that and more from Ward if they’re going to make a serious stride forward this season. Tennessee retooled its struggling offensive line this spring, overpaying beleaguered Steelers left tackle Dan Moore Jr. in free agency so they could move last year’s first-round pick, JC Latham, to right tackle. With former first-rounder Peter Skoronski at left guard, Lloyd Cushenberry at center, and new addition of veteran right guard Kevin Zeitler, the Titans have paid in picks and cash to get Ward a competent line to play behind.
More From Round 1
But Tennessee’s receiving corps is still perhaps the worst in the NFL. Calvin Ridley is the team’s top wideout. Tyler Lockett, the former Seahawks receiver who was cut in March and signed on the eve of the draft, may well be their no. 2 option. Former first-round pick Treylon Burks had four catches last season before tearing his ACL and was drafted two general managers ago. Nick Westbrook-Ikhine left in free agency and was replaced by Van Jefferson, perhaps the least remarkable NFL receiver who could legitimately start in Week 1. Tennessee is going to need Ward to create some magic early. And he’s certainly capable of doing that. In fact, he’s done so throughout his underdog-like career.
In high school, Ward played quarterback in a Wing-T offense—a system so antiquated it was developed by Pop Warner—and subsequently he was a 0-star recruit. Ward took his only D-I scholarship offer, from Incarnate Word, and parlayed that into an opportunity with Washington State, which he then parlayed into the quarterback job at the University of Miami.
Many analysts have said Ward would be the fourth- or fifth-ranked quarterback in last year’s class. But that undersells it. Ward actually did declare for last year’s draft, even releasing a video on social media announcing his intentions. But he was given a mid-round grade by the NFL’s advisory committee, offered NIL money to return to Miami, and decided to continue his collegiate run. In truth, rather than being the fourth- or fifth-best QB last year, Ward may have been graded by some teams as a fourth- or fifth-rounder. Now he is the first pick in the draft because of the improvements he made last season.
If Ward fails, his 2024 draft grade will be cited as evidence that he was a reach in a weak class. But he is talented enough, and has demonstrated enough improvement in the past five years, that the Titans decided to chance it to see whether Ward is 2022 Geno Smith mixed with 2014 Ben Roethlisberger, or 2014 Geno Smith mixed with 2022 Ben Roethlisberger.
As the Titans prepare to open a new stadium in 2027, Ward has a lot of plays to make. We know he isn’t going to be Levis, and he isn’t going to be boring. But the question is whether he’ll ultimately be talented enough to transfuse the Titans into Tennessee’s blood.
