Tennessee has already lived through one young quarterback whose accuracy never quite settled in. That’s why Cam Ward’s early numbers are drawing so much attention, and why the Will Levis comparison is landing with such force.
Ward’s rookie completion rate last season was 59.8%, just 1.4 percentage points better than Levis’ 58.4% in his only year as a starter. That gap is small enough to set off alarms for Titans fans who have seen this movie before.
And when Ward is measured against other recent rookie passers, the picture gets even less flattering: among 12 qualifying quarterbacks in their first NFL season from 2023 through 2025, he ranked ninth in completion percentage, according to StatMuse. That ranking was based on unrounded percentages and limited to quarterbacks with at least 14 attempts per team game.
What makes that number stand out is where Ward came from. At Miami, he completed 67.2% of his throws and set a school record.
Then he arrived in Tennessee and dropped nearly eight percentage points. Some of that can be blamed on the leap to the NFL.
Some of it points to protection and receiving help. Some of it belongs to Ward himself.
The truth is probably spread across all of it.
A deeper look at his misses shows the same split. PFF charted all 217 of Ward’s incompletions.
Sixty were credited to the defense, and 28 came from receiver errors. That means 88 incompletions were not simply Ward missing an open target.
Even so, there were still 28 overthrows, 25 passes thrown in front, 12 behind and nine underthrown. The Titans did not make every throw easy, but the No. 1 overall pick also left plenty on the field.
The way Ward looked in college compared with the way he looked in Tennessee only sharpens the concern. In Miami highlights, he appeared comfortable dropping straight back, letting the play develop and finding the open man.
With the Titans, he was often drifting to his right instead of staying patient in the pocket. That kind of habit is the sort of thing NFL defenses can exploit quickly, especially if they cut off that escape lane and force him back to his left.
The early part of Year 2 did little to quiet the noise. In his first preseason game, Ward went 5-of-12 for 57 yards, did not throw a touchdown, finished with a 56.6 passer rating and was called for intentional grounding. It was only three series, but it still looked uncomfortably familiar.
There was at least one encouraging sequence in the opener. Ward helped guide Tennessee on an 11-play, 95-yard touchdown drive to start the game.
He hit Calvin Ridley for 18 yards on third-and-3 and then found Gunnar Helm for 16 yards on third-and-10. Tony Pollard capped the march with a five-yard touchdown run.
Ward wasn’t asked to do everything, but he delivered two throws the Titans needed.
That’s where Brian Daboll comes in. The Titans’ offensive coordinator does not need to pretend the accuracy issues don’t exist. He needs to help Ward settle down, clean up his footwork and build an offense that fits what the quarterback does best.
Daboll has done that before. Josh Allen’s completion percentage climbed from 58.8% in 2019 to 69.2% in 2020 when Daboll was Buffalo’s offensive coordinator.
Allen also threw 37 touchdown passes that season, and Daboll was named AP Assistant Coach of the Year. Allen gets the credit for becoming Allen, but Daboll was part of the lift.
Daboll’s résumé doesn’t stop there. In his first season as the Giants’ head coach, Daniel Jones completed 67.2% of his passes, threw only five interceptions and helped New York reach the playoffs.
None of that promises Ward will turn into Josh Allen. But it does show Daboll has helped young quarterbacks play better football before.
He has already signaled that he’ll shape the offense around Ward’s comfort level. If Ward is going to trust the pocket again and find some of that Miami touch, Daboll gives him a real shot to get there.
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