Thursday was the first day of Tennessee Titans OTAs that was open to the media, and all eyes were on the budding connection between QB Cam Ward and his new star receiver Carnell Tate.

Taking Tate with the fourth overall pick in April’s draft shocked everybody, leading to weeks of debate surrounding the value of the pick. But in his first on-field action with (most of) the rest of the team, Tate passed what I call The Grandma Test.

Carnell Tate passes the eye test with flying colors

During the summer months, I like to apply The Grandma Test to football practice. There’s a lot of projecting you have to do when players aren’t in pads and are running drills that sometimes look starkly different from real football by design. So being a Ball Knower with a well-calibrated eye test is key. But The Grandma Test is the simplest version of the eye test.

Put simply: If I brought my sweet grandmother with me to the Titans facility and pointed here in the direction of the right position group, could she identify the player in question as being a standout one way or another. Sometimes this can be applied to players for negative reasons, but in the case of Tate on Thursday, I’m applying it in the most complimentary of ways. My grandmother (or anybody unfamiliar with football) could’ve stood out there for an hour this week and said “yea that number 14 seems like the best one”.

Titans writer Jim Wyatt tracked Tate as having a team-leading six receptions in Thursday’s open practice, half of which were touchdowns. He demonstrates on every rep everything he was billed as being: a smooth, long glider with a massive catch radius and buttery smooth hands. Those massive mitts (94th percentile!) of his were the first thing Cam Ward mentioned when asked about his new receiver. “He has great hands,” Ward explained, “wins in man coverage, he’s a strider. He’s a guy who can create first off press, and he doesn’t drop nothing.” So he’s got the two to five ways to get him the ball early, get him the ball, probably continue to work on that timing.” Tate really does catch everything: he had 51 receptions and zero drops in 2025.

Ward also mentioned the team’s excitement to get opposing defenses to play man against him, which makes sense considering his addition raises their man-beating capabilities significantly. The 2025 Titans largely struggled to win their 1-on-1 matchups. But Tate brings a different level of ability against man, by either routing defenders up or turning 50/50 balls into 80/20 balls in his favor.

We have a long way to go until he’s suited up in pads on an NFL sideline. But so far, so great.