Titans training camp notebook: Offense picks up where it left off, first OL clue, Femi Oladejo’s first impression
It’s a packed Tennessee Titans camp update, which also includes QB Will Levis, WR Calvin Ridley, RT JC Latham as Cam Ward and the rest of the team took the field for the first time.
The Tennessee Titans opened training camp Tuesday with their first practice of the ramp-up period at Vanderbilt Health Football Center, beginning the stretch of roughly four sessions before pads come on.
Easton Freeze and I split up across the practice field to bring the best coverage we can on A to Z Sports, and there was plenty to unpack from Day 1 of this 2026 NFL season.
Two names dominated my notebook: second-year edge rusher Femi Oladejo and quarterback Will Levis, but I’ll let Easton kick things off.
The offense’s script picked up where spring left off
Easton Freeze: The play calling for the first day of camp seemed to carry a clear theme: get the ball rolling, get some completions underneath, and don’t focus on the hard stuff yet. There wasn’t much emphasis on moving the sticks or scoring touchdowns. It felt like a day designed to get people back in rhythm, get everybody feeling good, and build from there.
Because of that, the look of the offense is going to change pretty quickly as camp progresses. We saw some of that evolution already in the spring. When the Titans put the pads on, I think that’s when the green light truly flips, because we know the offensive feel under new offensive coordinator Brian Daboll is going to be a good deal different from what we saw under Brian Callahan last year. Callahan’s approach was more about taking what the defense gives you. With Daboll, it’s more about taking what he gives you.
What Daboll gave them Wednesday was a lot of underneath stuff, easy-completion work that looked more like last year than what I think this year will ultimately look like. That’s not a bad thing. It’s just a place to start.
First offensive line position battle clue, but what does it actually mean?
Freeze: At the podium before practice, Saleh was asked whether or not offensive linemen Austin Sloatman and Cordell Volson, the two veterans competing at center and right guard, are in line to start first. Saleh said yes.
But then, presented without comment: on the second play of team practice on the entire day, right guard Jackson Slater was called for a false start. I noticed Slater a lot Wednesday.
Does that mean anything necessarily? I go back to Saleh’s comments at the podium Tuesday before the first practice, where he said out loud that there’s going to be a decent amount of rotation during camp. That rotation doesn’t necessarily reflect who is starting and who is the backup. The coaching staff plans to have some guys take more first-team reps on certain days even though they aren’t necessarily going to be the starters.
The competition at right guard is really the only offensive line battle to track. Watching Slater and Volson and picking up on who is playing where and when is going to be a running thread throughout camp. Wednesday was our first data point on that, and it was a noteworthy one based on what Saleh said at the podium versus what played out on the field. I’ll be tracking this more as we go, especially when the pads come on, and especially once the Titans are playing against other teams in joint practices.
Femi Oladejo’s first impression for year 2
Austin Stanley: I’ll kick things off with a guy we did not see during spring practices. Oladejo, the Titans’ second-round pick from a year ago, missed time with some type of injury. Paul Kurharsky reported earlier this month that a hamstring is what kept him out, but Femi was back out there Tuesday. We mentioned this a week ago when Tennessee put out that JC Latham and Amani Hooker would be placed on PUP (Hooker is now off it), and it was a big win that Oladejo carried no designation and was cleared to practice.
Femi was out there wearing his No. 7, and the guy looks the part. If you were building a defensive edge rusher in a video game, you’d want him to look like Oladejo. From shoulders all the way down to his calves, he looks thick, explosive, and like the first guy off the bus.
The question is how that translates into production going into Year 2 after missing so much time as a rookie. There were a few reps I watched where he got chipped by a tight end and had to work through the tackle. When Oladejo was matched up against a tight end one-on-one, he could do whatever he wanted, throwing that tight end around. But the chip gave the tackle a second opportunity to recover, and that slowed him down.
You can see the individual skills. The concern is the same one you see with wide receivers running “TikTok routes.” How does Oladejo develop effective pass rush moves that don’t take so long to execute that the quarterback gets rid of the football before he arrives?
A couple of times he got beat. On one play, guard Volson kicked out on a run and Femi did his best to set the edge but got pushed out too far, opening a big hole for running back Tony Pollard. On another, wide receiver Mason Kinsey made a crafty play from the slot, chipping down on Oladejo and then circling around him while Hendon Hooker rolled out and dumped it off to Kinsey for a quick completion. It put Femi in no man’s land, though credit Kinsey for the craftiness of making that play happen.
Will Levis is still Will Levis, and Mitch Trubisky’s stock goes up
Stanley: Quarterback Mitch Trubisky was not at practice Tuesday (Saleh mentioned tightness), which meant Levis and Hendon Hooker got more run. I don’t think Levis is on this roster for the regular season, and there’s a whole separate discussion to be had about whether the Titans keep three quarterbacks or just two.
Levis continues to be the same guy he’s always been. He will look great doing some things and then immediately look awful doing something right after. It started in individual period when the quarterbacks were throwing into the net. The quarterback coach points out left or right net, then one of three targets on that net, and the quarterback has to hit it. Levis flat out missed the net on the left side from about 10-15 yards out, air-mailing it way over. Fairly typical.
He also threw a red zone interception to Sanoussi Kane, throwing late over the middle while looking for wide receiver Xavier Restrepo. It was just a bad decision, the typical bad decision we see from Levis from time to time.
Hooker, meanwhile, took third-team reps and did more than he did in OTAs and minicamp because of Trubisky’s absence. He made a couple nice throws, but there were too many times where he just wasn’t willing to throw the ball. A couple of situations where he had to tuck it, scramble, and try to make something happen produced nothing.
My overall takeaway on the quarterback room: Mitch Trubisky’s value, stock up. Will Levis, stock the same, which is not buyable and not tradable to me. Levis has to figure that out for himself.
Camp potpourri: Ayomanor’s posture work, Latham’s return, Ridley’s absence
Freeze: A few other things stood out Wednesday that are worth mentioning.
You can tell that wide receiver Elic Ayomanor is really focused on what he told us he was working on back during the spring: getting his posture fixed. He said in the spring that he was unhappy with how often he was off balance, and he’s not doing that as much anymore. He’s really exaggerating his forward lean out of press. That’s something you can tell he’s putting deliberate work into.
We also saw some updates from offensive tackle JC Latham, who was working to get back into things after the pec strain that Saleh mentioned Tuesday.And wide receiver Calvin Ridley, who was announced before practice to not be practicing Wednesday after dealing with a bad stomach bug, was out on the field running around and trying to get his weight back up after losing some from being sick.
More to come as camp rolls along.