The Tennessee Titans are at a point where the blame for the offense can’t be tossed in one direction and left there. On Thursday, ahead of Week 7 against the Cleveland Browns, offensive coordinator Brian Daboll offered a read on Cam Ward that landed somewhere between encouragement and frustration.
Daboll said he likes the direction the second-year quarterback is headed, but the production still isn’t where it needs to be. That’s the tension right now. Ward has been uneven, and the offense around him has not exactly lifted him up.
Through six games, Ward has thrown for 998 yards with four touchdowns and four interceptions. His 39.5 QBR ranks 29th in the league. In Tennessee’s first win last week, he finished with 102 passing yards, one touchdown, one interception and 11 completions.
The bigger concern is that Ward doesn’t just look stuck - he looks further behind than expected compared with his rookie season. Some of that comes down to the obvious stuff: poor decisions, missed throws, ugly passes. But it would be too simple to pin the Titans’ offensive problems on him alone, because Daboll is the one dialing up the plays.
That’s where the split gets messy. Daboll has to account for one of the NFL’s least efficient offenses, even if he sees Ward’s progress differently.
Tennessee needs both sides to move. Right now, neither one is moving cleanly.
A Nutshell Sports graph measuring quarterback expected points added per play from inside and outside the pocket puts Ward in the “struggles everywhere” tier, one of the few passers in that category. He has drifted closer to being labeled an “improviser” than a “pocket passer,” which is not where the Titans want him to be behind an offensive line that has allowed just 10 sacks so far.
Still, the line isn’t the whole story. Ward’s trouble pushing the ball downfield traces back in part to Daboll’s conservative approach.
Simple mistakes, including receivers being drawn up to run right toward one another, have cluttered Ward’s reads. And the deep shots just haven’t been there often enough.
FantasyPros has Ward with only 10 passes of 20-plus yards, three passes of 30-plus yards and one completion beyond 40 yards this season. Last season, he finished with 40, 13 and three in those same categories.
That’s a sharp drop-off in explosive throws, and it’s happening in an offense that was already supposed to need more juice. Tennessee does have pieces to like. Carnell Tate looks every bit like a budding superstar wide receiver, and Carmen Bricillo’s offensive line, especially T JC Latham, has made major strides.
Even with that promise, Ward is clearly lagging behind, and the system built around him hasn’t done enough to help.
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That makes the next two weeks worth watching around players like Calvin Ridley, Tony Pollard and Cody Barton, all of whom could draw different levels of interest depending on what a contender needs. Ridley has been linked to the Rams, Pollard has been tied to the Bengals and Barton has been floated to the Bills, but those are only speculative fits for now, the sort of deadline chatter that says as much about where the Titans are headed as it does about where these veterans might land. [Read more 🡒]