Another national NFL media member is calling for the Tennessee Titans to consider a short-term benching of second-year quarterback Cam Ward. 

The Titans are 0-3 and miserable to watch. Tennessee has gone 12-49 over its last 61 games. The idea of sitting Ward, though, is something that people pushing it don’t quite understand, and they are always going to jump to compare it to the most recent example of when benching a former No. 1 overall pick appeared to work.

The latest voice is Mike Jones, a national NFL writer for The Athletic. Jones has been with the outlet for five years and covered the Commanders for the Washington Post before that. He’s been around. He’s not a fool. I don’t think that at all. I just think he might be lacking context on the Titans’ situation right now and jumping to the Bryce Young comparison without examining what actually happened in Carolina.

The Bryce Young benching wasn’t as simple as everyone remembers

Jones points to how Dave Canales, the first-year head coach of the Carolina Panthers, benched Bryce Young after the second game of his second season as the former No. 1 overall pick. Young sat for five games. Andy Dalton came in, Carolina won the next game, then lost the rest. Young came back in Week 8, and Jones talks about how things improved from there. Young and the Panthers made the playoffs in his third season last year, and he’s off to a fine start to his career since the short-term benching.

It’s really easy to forget the reason Bryce Young came back in Week 8. Andy Dalton got into a car accident with his family. Minor as it was, the injury was enough for Dalton to miss that game. So Young had to play again, and then never looked back.

One thing we don’t know: was Dave Canales ever actually going to go back to Bryce Young? We don’t know that answer. Canales can tell you yes, he was, but we just have to take his word for it. He did say Dalton was going to be the Week 8 starter before the injury. That situation is continuously overlooked.

Cam Ward’s issues are real, but a benching solves none of them

Jones does talk about Ward’s overall issues with accuracy, footwork, and his post-game podium performances. I will give Jones this: he did say context matters and acknowledged that post-game podiums don’t give the player or the coach the luxury of having seen the film. But people have been criticizing Cam Ward’s approach at the podium ever since he came into the NFL.

Then there’s the nonchalant, flat-footed, casual-walk-in-the-park dropback Ward pulled against the New York Giants in the second quarter this past week that makes everybody want to scream “What are you doing?” at their TV. Cam does that from time to time. He did it at Miami. He probably shouldn’t keep doing it.

Lucas Panzica and Robert Walsh bring up a great comparison. It’s the Step Brothers situation. Will Ferrell and John C. Reilly’s characters walk into a job interview wearing tuxedos and it’s funny. Then they botch the interview, and the tuxedos seem ridiculous. Cam Ward is the same way. If you’re Josh Allen, if you’re an MVP candidate, if you’re Lamar Jackson or Dak Prescott, and you do the cool flat-footed throw down the field and complete the pass, it’s a highlight. When you’re one of the last quarterbacks in a lot of different metrics, it’s not cool. It’s only cool if it’s working.

I get that Ward should not do that. It’s not good process, and it’s not building good habits.

Why a short-term benching would only be warranted in 2 specific scenarios

There are two situations where a short-term benching of Cam Ward would make sense, and one of them would actually signal a way bigger issue with the Tennessee Titans than Ward’s future.

The first: if the Titans’ locker room was revolting against Cam Ward, a benching would make sense. That is very far from happening, and I don’t ever really see a situation where it could become reality. This locker room really likes Cam Ward. They like him quite a bit.

The second scenario would be a true disaster signal. My read on Dave Canales benching Bryce Young in 2024 is that Canales had to prove to David Tepper, the quick-trigger Panthers owner who had just fired Matt Rhule and Frank Reich in rapid succession, that the head coach was not the problem. Canales needed a proof of concept. Bring in Andy Dalton, win a game, and that happened.

If Robert Saleh has to do that in Nashville to prove himself to owner Amy Adams Strunk, then that would be a way bigger issue for this organization than Cam Ward’s future. That would be true dysfunction. I don’t think that’s the case, but I had to point out that the Bryce Young benching had a lot more to it than just trying to get a quarterback to sit down so everything slows down.

Cam Ward should play every snap he possibly can for this 2026 NFL season. 

He can do what Saleh said he needs to do: get more reps, get into more situations where he’s in big moments like he was against the Eagles late trying to win, like he was against the Giants with a game-winning opportunity in his hands. You can learn from losing both of those games, and now Ward has an opportunity to show that he did learn through those moments.

He can’t do that from the sideline on the bench.