Titans training camp notebook: Cam Ward dazzles before costly mistakes, Elic Ayomanor turns up the heat, defensive playmaker pops
Cam Ward’s day was entertaining to fans at Tennessee Titans training camp, but the show didn’t stop with the QB’s performance.
The Tennessee Titans’ first day of pads had extra pop at Vanderbilt Health Football Center on Monday, and quarterback Cam Ward was the story. Ward delivered what might have been his most explosive day through 4 training camp practices, making plays with his arm and his legs before trying to do a little too much.
Meanwhile, a largely overlooked linebacker is quietly stacking impressive days in a crowded position group.
Easton Freeze and I have our notebooks from Day 4 of Titans camp.
Cam Ward’s arm talent was on full display at Titans camp
Stanley: The good from Ward started during the tail end of individual period when receivers and quarterbacks were running routes on air. Ward threw a deep ball to wide receiver Calvin Ridley, who tracked it over his outside shoulder. The ball placement alone signaled what kind of day it was going to be.
In the first 11-on-11 period, Ward rolled out to his right on a play-action pass and hit Ridley for a big gain. The timing was sharp, the ball placed high to the outside where nobody could touch it. Ridley had come out of his break to beat cornerback Cor’Dale Flott, creating separation, and the ball landed right in his hands in a spot that turned him up the field down the sideline. That could have gone for a long time.
Ward also threw a nice dart through traffic to Wan’Dale Robinson between safety Kevin Winston Jr. and linebacker Cedric Gray. A couple plays later he hit Robinson again on a quick-hitter play action over the top of the line between the linebackers and safeties. Robinson was targeted quite a bit by Ward throughout the day, as was Ridley.
Later in practice, Ward connected with tight end Gunnar Helm and found Robinson a couple more times. But the throw of the day came when Cam’s unit faced third-and-15 from the 20-yard line after a false start. Ridley cut across the field inside the 5-yard line while Ward hung in the pocket trying to make something happen. From my vantage point in the end zone, I couldn’t tell what Cam was trying to do as the ball approached. Then Ridley appeared out of nowhere, snatching the ball out of the air, jumping and twisting to haul it in for a first-and-goal. It would have been a first-and-goal from the two or three.
The bad from Ward was the same mistake twice
Stanley: Ward threw 2 interceptions on Monday, and they were basically the same play. Both came while rolling to his right and throwing late across the middle.
The first came in the first-team period. Safety Amani Hooker baited Ward into the throw after Cam had already connected with Robinson over the middle a couple times earlier in the series. Hooker jumped the route, picked it off, and had room to run the other way. It was a nice play by Hooker and a bad throw by Ward.
The second came in a later 11-on-11 period. Ward rolled right again, threw late across the middle again, and this time defensive end Jermaine Johnson jumped up from the backside and snagged it.
Is it bad that Ward threw 2 interceptions? Yes.
Is there a silver lining that both were the same mistake? You can argue it’s isolated to one bad habit on scramble drills. We know Ward likes to throw across his body and across the field. He did it on his first touchdown pass to receiver Elic Ayomanor last season.
But these were different. These weren’t the rainbow throws to the opposite sideline. These were laid across the middle, and he can’t make the same mistake twice in 20 minutes. If this was Will Levis, I and a lot of people would be dumping all over it. Ward cannot make that mistake. Other than those 2 plays, he was legitimately really good.
“I don’t want to say they’re not negotiables, but but thrown across your body, especially shallow, it’s different if you really extend the pocket and it just really opens up for you,” head coach Robert Saleh said after practice. “But when there’s there’s so much traffic in there, the one that Jermaine made was was an elite play. You know that’s your checkdown with regard to a boot. Jermaine made a hell of a play, but usually that checkdown’s you can count on it being open, but the the first one that Hooker intercepted probably was a poor decision.”
Speaking of Levis, he ended practice with a naked bootleg to the right side, high-stepping into the end zone like he was Peyton Manning against Alabama or Deion Sanders returning an interception for a touchdown with the Dallas Cowboys. The ball handling on the fake was solid, nobody was near him, and the horn blew to end practice.
Elic Ayomanor elevates his game with pads
Freeze: Wide receiver Elic Ayomanor made it impossible to look anywhere else. The big-bodied, traditional X-style receiver didn’t just maintain the momentum he’d been building throughout the early days of camp. He elevated his game with the pads on, just as you’d hope a player with his frame and physicality would.
Ayomanor was making plays all day long. He hauled in a strike from quarterback Mitch Trubisky on a dig route. He came down with a 20-plus-yard touchdown pass from Trubisky over cornerback Micah Robinson. Even when he wasn’t catching the ball, he was making plays. Trubisky threw one too late for the deep ball, but Ayomanor drew a pass interference penalty against Robinson in the end zone because he had smoked the guy. He’s big. He’s winning at the catch point. He is being physically dominant against cornerbacks smaller than him, of which most are.
We even saw him get reps against Alontae Taylor, the Titans’ No. 1 outside corner. Those two got into it with a little scuffle, a little heat, a little energy. Love to see that. They were battling, and Ayomanor was looking for touchdown passes over guys like Taylor in the corner of the end zone. There’s a consistency to this that can’t be dismissed. It’s a day in, day out thing.
All of it makes me even more confident in saying Ayomanor is going to be on the field more this year than people realize. He’s going to be a weapon for this team more than people realize. It could be a big year for him now that he’s no longer being expected to play above his station like he was as a rookie.
Titans LB James Williams is stacking impressive days with playmaking ability
Stanley: The other player making noise Monday was inside linebacker James Williams Sr., a name nobody has thought much about. Williams had a tackle for loss on running back Tyjae Spears where he blew up the play and would have slung Spears to the ground if they weren’t teammates. He also batted down a Mitchell Trubisky pass on a scramble drill toward the sideline, an athletic play in space. Last week he intercepted Trubisky down the field while playing a Brian Urlacher-style deep zone middle linebacker look. He added another run stuff at the line of scrimmage Monday, filling the hole perfectly.
Williams is a former 5-star high school recruit who played safety at Miami before becoming a seventh-round pick and transitioning to linebacker. I don’t know if he’s going to make the team, but he’s made a lot of plays in the first 4 days of Titans training camp.
The problem for Williams is the three guys ahead of him who the Titans have invested more into: veteran Cody Barton, third-year player Cedric Gray (a fourth-round pick), and second-round rookie Anthony Hill Jr. Can Williams cement himself as the fourth inside linebacker?
The Titans also like Darian Mousy and Muhammad Diabate at the position. That’s 6 guys they feel good about, and I don’t know how many they’re going to keep.
Saleh’s modified 1-on-1 periods prioritize injury prevention
Freeze: When coach Robert Saleh took to the podium after practice, he explained what we should expect from his one-on-one periods, which begin Tuesday. This is a bit different than what we’re accustomed to seeing at most NFL practices, but Saleh laid out his reasoning clearly.
“When you look traditionally throughout football, at least over the last, I’d say, 5 to 10 years, One-on-ones has been the second biggest period with regards to injury, and you find that in one-on-ones you get like a linebacker and a running back running 10 yards apart just colliding with one another, or you run routes where you wouldn’t necessarily run those routes on the actual timing and rhythm of a play. You’ve got triple moves, you’ve got just all these kinds of hokey-pokey routes. So we run kind of a 7-on-7, man-only, normal spacing, put the quarterback through a normal cadence where you’re getting 5 one-on-ones at a time with real authentic routes within a play call. And we match up the players the way we need to make sure that we’re getting the matchups that we all want to see.” — Saleh
So it’s going to be something of a 9-on-7 drill. If I had to guess, that may be bad news for media in terms of filming those periods if they’re running authentic route combinations. At the very best, they’ll have us in tight on one player, but they may tell us we can’t film that period at all. Maybe we’ll get that to change. We’ll see.
The logic makes sense, though. It’s more useful to the actual players and the actual team, and the injury prevention component of it is sound. Saleh also noted that the big guys in the trenches, defensive line versus offensive line, will be up to those position coaches, and we’ll see whether they choose to run some of their own one-on-one matchups. I’m rooting for that to happen. We’ll find out Tuesday.
