Cam Ward’s first full-team practice in front of media this week wasn’t extremely notable in any big way. The Tennessee Titans first overall draft pick looked good. He wasn’t blowing anybody out of the water by any means, but he didn’t look green at all compared to his three veteran counterparts either. It was a perfectly good place to start.

But one thing did catch my attention about him as the practice went on. It’s a terrible idea to draw any sweeping, definitive conclusions based on the first unpadded practice in May. But this is the potential storyline I’ve got my eye on already, and if it becomes a trend this summer, I think it could be the plot-line that we see span Ward’s rookie campaign: aggressiveness.

He wasn’t checking the ball down. At all. That may sound like a small thing. But it stood out. His first pass from scrimmage was a dart into the heart of the defense where he found fellow rookie Gunnar Helm in traffic. That set the tone for his day.

He continued to test the boundaries, try threading tight windows across the middle, and experiment with pushing the ball down the field all day. In both 7-on-7s and 11-on-11’s, he didn’t seem content to take “no” for an answer. His veteran counterparts were happy to dump the ball off on plays that didn’t materialize downfield. Ward kept finding a way to take a chance on somebody else in the pattern.

Midway through practice, he took off scrambling to his right to extend a play. Nothing was coming open. A quick sidenote: he’s got this knack for truly extending on scrambles like this. He’s not sprinting to the sideline, but rather pacing his rollout to be just faster than the guy he’s needing to outrun. He knows how to get all the juice out of that squeeze. And on this rep, he uses his off hand to direct traffic, locking eyes with WR Jha’Quan Jackson and pointing to where he wants him to plant himself.

A half-beat later the ball is out of his hand, thrown across his body into the thick of the defensive swarm for Jackson. It’s the kind of decision that every QB from a young age is taught to never make. It’s dangerous. It requires extremely difficult accuracy on the move and quality decision-making in a split second. It’s just a terrible idea for the majority of QBs the majority of the time.

And yet, he hits Jackson in both hands. It’s thrown a hair behind Jackson, in a safe place where only he can catch it. It ends up being an incompletion, but Jha’Quan himself would tell you he needs to catch that ball.

This was a glimpse at Cam’s magic. It was also an example of how he can get himself in big trouble this year. It’s the kind of play style that’s cavalier and stupid when it doesn’t work, but incredible when it does.

Now, do I expect him to be as reckless in the fall as he is in a May practice? No. This is the time to experiment. He’s surely trying things now he wouldn’t do in a real game, because that’s what this time of year is for. But I have this sneaking suspicion that it’s still a peek through the window at what this year may be like. I think we’ll be talking all season about how best to fine-tune the maverick tendencies of Cam Ward. Debating in detail where exactly the line is. Wondering if it’ll be what wins or loses Tennessee the game each week.

If so, we’re in for an exciting ride. Here’s to it going better than it did last year.

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