Cam Ward and Carnell Tate are already putting in work together this summer.

A video posted to the Select QB Athletics Instagram page shows Ward throwing to the 4th overall pick in the 2026 NFL Draft, in what appears to be an informal workout session in Texas. Ward is wearing a Titans helmet and shoulder pads with no jersey, and Tate is running routes on air. It’s not a flashy clip. But for a team dealing with significant roster turnover around its franchise quarterback heading into Year 2, every rep matters.

This is the kind of thing that gets lost in the shuffle of an NFL offseason dominated by transactions and projections. We spend so much time evaluating the Titans’ roster on paper, that we forget the most important variable in whether those upgrades actually translate to wins: chemistry. And chemistry doesn’t build itself.

Continuity matters more than we give it credit for

Every offseason when I try to reevaluate the entire league, one of the fallbacks I lean on to figure out which teams are going to take a significant step is the simple question of continuity. How many of these guys are doing this again? How many of them have worked together before? How many of them are building on what they had previously?

That general concept holds up well historically. The best teams in the NFL tend to be the ones who keep their core together and build on it year over year, progressing from the 101 class, to the 201 class, to the 301 class until they reach their collective master’s degree.

That’s part of why I’ve been frustrated with the Titans these past couple of years. The deck chairs just continue to get shuffled. For what it’s worth, I’m not saying every change Tennessee made around Ward was unnecessary. Adding more talent at pass catcher was a good thing. Making the defense better so it can hold up its end of the bargain was a good and thing. The trade-off of starting from the ground floor with better personnel is worth it when the talent upgrade is significant enough.

But I still have that sour taste in my mouth. That bothersome voice in the back of my brain keeps asking: are they going to be in sync? Are they going to create rapport and chemistry with each other fast enough this year?

Ward is doing exactly what Robert Saleh asked

This Instagram video makes me feel a lot better about what Ward is doing to accelerate that process.

Players have been on vacation since the end of mandatory minicamp in June, and aren’t required to return for training camp until the end of July. But as Titans head coach Robert Sala said at the conclusion of minicamp, what you do as an athlete in these next 40 to 45 days can define what your season looks like. Being disciplined, continuing to work, and continuing to be with your teammates on an extracurricular basis can be the difference for this team.

Even Ward himself hinted at this. On the way out of his final press conference, ESPN’s Turron Davenport asked whether he planned to get together with his receivers to throw this summer. Ward’s response was something to the effect of: why wouldn’t I? Of course I am.

Well, here’s the video proving that he was telling the truth.

This is bigger than one workout video

I’m assuming this informal work is happening beyond just Ward and Tate. Ward said he planned to get with all of his guys, and I’d imagine the other skill position players are either in the background of these sessions, have already come through, or will be there soon. That’s what’s funny about Ward being on the show “Quarterback” this year on Netflix. His life, as he and the people around him have described it, is regimented and boring in all the right ways. A la John Wick, he is a man of focus. This is the kind of thing he wants to do, and it’s the kind of thing he is doing.

I do think it’s going to matter, as insignificant as this video may seem on the surface. Every single day these two spend together, every single rep they get, pushes them further along on the same page heading into a season where they don’t have any live game reps together. In the cases of receivers like Elic Ayomanor and Chimere Dike, they have some foundation from Year 1, but they need to build on it.

This is a super important and, to me, a super under-discussed element of the expectations we place on teams heading into each season. We live in an increasingly microwaved society where we want to plug and play and hope everything works out because the roster looks better on paper. But we are constantly underrating the importance of continuity. And when you choose to forego continuity in the name of getting significantly better, like the Titans did by adding Tate, you do everything you can to fast-track that process.

That’s exactly what Ward is proving he’s doing here. Talent gets you in the door, but chemistry is what wins games — and Tennessee’s quarterback clearly understands that.