Titans Tape Review: Cam Ward’s uneven day, 2 tantalizing weapons, an offensive line that earned its flowers, and a secondary that did not
Cam Ward showed flashes of the quarterback the Titans drafted, but the “nothing football” from Week 1 hasn’t gone away. Here’s what the tape revealed about where Tennessee stands after a 24-20 loss to Philadelphia.
The Tennessee Titans fell to the Philadelphia Eagles 24-20 in a Week 2 game that came down to the wire.
The Titans looked considerably better than they did in their Week 1 loss to the Jets, a welcome reprieve from the kind of performances that have subjected Tennessee’s fanbase to funeral-like atmospheres far too often the past couple of years. That part was nice.
But the tape from this game, as always, proved illuminating. Here is what stood out across Cam Ward’s continued adjustment to year 2, a pair of exciting offensive weapons, the Titans secondary issues, and an offensive line that had another encouraging day.
Cam Ward was fine, but “fine” is not enough
Ward had a better day in Week 2 than he did in Week 1, but calling it a truly good day feels a hair generous.
A fine day is more appropriate.
His second half was mostly good, his first half was mostly not, and on the whole it averages out to fine. His stat line tells a cleaner story than the tape does: 13 completions on 20 attempts for 183 yards, a 9.2-yard average completely (much better), two sacks for 14 yards lost, and a completion percentage north of 60%. The numbers were better than Week 1 across the board without question.
From a tape standpoint, he did some things that made me say, “there he is, there’s the Cam Ward we grew to be interested in after his rookie year,” while also delivering more of the “nothing football” that frustrated in Week 1. I’m talking plays where he is not detrimental to the team but is not helping it in any way either. It’s not actively bad. It’s the absence of good.
That nothing football spilled over into Week 2, and frankly, it was a more frustrating version of it because there were a handful of plays where you’re just thinking, we have got to be doing better than this in year 2.
When Amani Hooker returned his interception 92 yards and gave the Titans the ball inside the opponent’s 10-yard line, Ward had a wide-open Elic Ayomanor in the endzone after a nice, slow developing play with a double fake behind the line of scrimmage. This is a play he has to complete.
He threw it well behind Ayomanor, who contorted his body to get two hands on it. You’d like to see him catch that anyways, but it was a ridiculously difficult catch given the separation he had and how routine and short the pass needed to be.
Later, on second-and-8, Ward tried to step up through a pocket he felt collapsing. This is part of his lack of settlement in the pocket that continues to affect his level of play.
I could once say that Cam Ward is relatively fearless in the pocket, and that fearlessness was one of his most admirable attributes.
Right now, I cannot honestly say that. He is too skittish and uncomfortable. On this play, Tyjae Spears was wide open in the flat by design as a second-down outlet. Spears is my favorite player on this entire team with the ball in space, and he had all kinds of room. Instead, Ward stepped up, ran into the defense, tried to shoot a gap that closed, and got sacked.
His best throw of the day was this anticipatory strike that left his hands well before the receiver broke into a pocket between two defenders.
This is Cam Ward ripping passes at his best. These are the kinds of plays we saw enough of last year to be intrigued about him in year 2. This is good stuff! But it has been been far too few and far between in these first two games.
Here’s where I’m at on Ward through a frustratingly small sample size this season: His ball placement seems to be regressing, and his comfortability and feel for the pocket seems to be regressing. Perhaps that’s not the case and he’ll settle in quickly. But so far it’s been a rough tandem for him.
Whether it’s Cam remaking himself mechanically, his lack of settlement in Brian Daboll’s offense so far, or something else entirely, the step back is visible. He needs to get off the schneid with both of those elements of his game and get back to the player we saw more consistently last season.
I will add this: it seemed to me that in Week 2, he was starting to trust himself and lean into Gamer Cam a little more, which is a welcome change. But he needs to do a lot more of it, and he needs to continue each week showing us more of that comfortability and the Cam Ward that flashed last year. It doesn’t have to be perfect overnight. It doesn’t have to be perfect next week! There just needs to be clear and obvious evidence, of which there was some in this game, that he is starting to settle in and make strides. That is really important, and he has the rest of the 2026 season to do it.
MISSING: Carnell Tate and Wan’Dale Robinson
Tate and Robinson caught back-to-back passes in the second half here, which was nice.
But where were they the rest of the game? Their general absence is annoying and a tad concerning. Tate finished the day with five targets and three receptions for 27 yards. Robinson had one target and one catch for nine yards. One target. For a guy who caught a trillion balls throughout camp, Robinson still ranks second on the team in total targets between two games, but in this game the Eagles thoroughly eliminated him.
This team has invested far too much in these two players for them not to be people you game plan for on offense. Get them the ball. Tate was the 4th overall pick in the draft. Robinson signed a long-term deal worth $17.5 million a year. Maybe the Eagles were just not a good matchup and the Titans leaned on other things. The run game was effective, north of four yards per carry, and I do not take issue with the philosophical approach of wanting to establish the run with this roster. But why are those two not more a part of this game plan? That is what is interesting to me going forward. Their return on investment through two games is minimal. It is time for those two to become a bigger fixture, and I still expect that they will.
Epic Ayomanor
Not a typo, I just couldn’t pass up the lame wordplay.
Let’s talk about Elic Ayomanor. He continues to look like this team’s best receiver through two games. Now don’t get it twisted, Tate is more talented. Robinson is more experienced. Calvin Ridley, in terms of pure talent, is also more talented at this stage of their respective careers. But Ayomanor has made the most progress from year 1 to year 2 without question, and through two games he is producing the most for this team.
He should have had three targets, three catches for roughly 80 yards and a touchdown in this game, but Ward’s poorly thrown pass on the first drive took that away. He still leads the team in touchdown receptions with one from Week 1. In this game he caught two balls for 69 yards, averaging 34.5 yards a clip. When you get the ball in his hands, he is making impressive things happen downfield. It’s not just the wicked hurdle that everybody loved.
He is simply a ball player, and he’s emerging as a guy where it’s hard to say he doesn’t deserve more snaps than he’s getting.
He played 53% of the Titans’ offensive snaps. I joked on Twitter that that feels like it’s 47% too few. But in all seriousness, if this continues, you are going to have to think about the future of this team and whether it is best for Ayomanor to get the full-blown starting outside receiver treatment. I think he is capable of it. I have thought that for a long time. I wonder if fans and the Titans themselves are starting to wonder the same thing.
Tyjae Spears showed why I can’t quit him
People ask me every offseason why I continue to tout Tyjae Spears. We do this every year. He looks good in the preseason and summer months, then gets hurt and disappoints in the regular season. So far, knock on wood, he is healthy. He left some things to be desired in Week 1, let’s not sugarcoat it.
But in Week 2, he had 5.9 yards per carry on seven carries for 41 yards, caught both of his targets for 29 yards with a long of 27, and made some of the biggest plays of the day.
Look at these clips and you will understand why my response to doubters is always the same: yes, we can keep doing this, because Tyjae Spears can do these things!
The Titans secondary has to tighten up fast
A brief note here, with a longer standalone piece at atozsports.com breaking down 10 of the Eagles’ third-down conversions that largely centers on this secondary. Having watched the tape, the Titans secondary was very obviously missing Cor’Dale Flott and did not trust Micah Robinson as the backup outside cornerback to come in without being a liability.
Whether that is fair to Robinson is one thing, but their actions told me they were worried about him on the back end. That meant a heavy dose of zone coverage, and frankly the Eagles receivers were just better than the Titans’ defensive backs for the most part. Robert Saleh spoke to that when I asked him in his postgame press conference.
He said these guys have to trust the rules and fundamentals of this defense, that the keys are there for them, and that a lot of what they’re seeing is the same thing over and over from opposing offenses. They will get used to it and it will tighten up, in his opinion.
Right now, it is not tight enough at all. And it is allowing for some really easy pitches and catches. That said, having watched the tape, I feel less bad about the secondary than I did watching the game in person. On a handful of plays where it seemed like a receiver got wide open, the Eagles receivers just flat out won with their experience and ability. DeVonta Smith and Dontavion Wicks won with their freakishness a couple of times. Jalen Hurts won with some really nice ball placement and veteran savvy a couple of times. The Eagles big-boyed them a little bit!
That is not an excuse so much as it is an easier way to understand why the secondary looked as bad as it did. But I don’t think they are ultimately as bad as they look. You can tell it is not always a lack of ability, but a lack of cohesiveness and understanding of the system.
That has to get corrected quickly. Cor’Dale Flott has to return quickly.
The offensive line earned some praise
The offensive line as a unit was, dare I say, pretty good in Week 2.
The tape study from Week 1 showed us that the line was not as bad as it seemed in the moment, and this week they were better than I expected on paper. PFF had the Titans ranked 8th in pass blocking efficiency for the game. That was the spirit of the performance based on what I saw on tape.
JC Latham in particular stood out. I told you all he was good in Week 1. He was better in Week 2. The Titans have a good franchise tackle in JC Latham. I have been beating that drum all summer, and I will continue beating it here. Do not let the one play against Jalen Carter at the end of the game deceive you into thinking Latham was a liability. He was not. He and Peter Skoronski are clearly this team’s best two linemen. They are both franchise-level players, and Latham is going to continue to look better each and every week if you ask me. He is finding some consistency when you combine the end of last season with the beginning of this one.
That play against Carter deserves context. Carter is an elite defensive lineman getting paid like one, because he is that good. On a play-action boot by Ward, Carter did not bite down on the run at all. He told reporters after the game that there was something about Ward’s body language he felt he could read.
Carter went screaming uphill while Latham was blocking to sell the run, expecting the defender to engage with him at least a little bit for both players to lock bodies on the fake handoff. Carter did not engage even a little bit. He stayed wide, and it became a really difficult block. In terms of blame on that play, I put far more of it on the play call and the situational awareness of Carter’s presence right there than I do on Latham. As Saleh said in his Monday press conference, you do wish your franchise right tackle could trap Carter or force him inside in that pinch. Latham is not alleviated of all blame, and it was one of his worst snaps of the day. But that play is going to get outsized exposure when his day on the whole was quite good!
The only offensive lineman who concerns me right now is Austin Schlottmann. He looks about as limited athletically as I expected him to. I am curious whether that improves as he settles in, or whether he is the kind of player who might wane down the stretch because of the marathon of a season he has never been exposed to as a starter.
He was not a full-blown liability in this game, but I would call him the worst Titans lineman based on eyeballing the tape a couple of times. If the Titans like his smarts and his ability to get the offense right pre-snap so much that they are willing to live with the physical limitations post-snap, I can understand that to an extent. But at some point it is going to get you in trouble. Not his best game by any means.
