Titans rookie QB Cam Ward had a season that, if you paid close attention, provided a lot of reason for belief heading into year two. He’s a textbook example of a talented young quarterback who did a lot of promising things in a deeply flawed situation. You’re just hoping that with some big upgrades in year two around him, he can turn that flash into consistency.

So much of what we talk about with the quarterback position is a chicken or the egg problem. A lot of our draft discussions every season boil down to nurture versus nature. Sometimes, the players taken at the top are the ones most destined to fail based on which franchise they have to go play for. Titans GM Mike Borgonzi has worked hard this off-season to make his roster one that can foster a talented young quarterback, not ruin them.

A big part of that has been changing the weapons at Cam Ward’s disposal. And while last year’s young weapons provided a lot of promise in their own right, fourth overall pick Carnell Tate brings something that Cam Ward has never had in the NFL.

The Athletic’s Derrik Klassen explains how Tate helps Ward

Cohost of The Athletic Football Show and my friend Derrik Klassen put out a sharp YouTube video last week explaining one of the many ways in which Cardinal Tate is going to revolutionize what Cam Ward can do.

Let’s not get it twisted: Cam Ward had a very promising rookie year, but it was far from a perfect one. Much of the excitement for him is projection heading into year two, because his flashes need to be more consistent if he’s going to become a franchise quarterback in the NFL. What makes it easy to project a lot for Cam Ward is the fact that he was playing the game on expert mode. The margin for error afforded to him by his teammates was laughably thin at times.

The fellow rookies he was passing to did some nice things. Wide receivers Elic Ayomanor and Chimere Dike are going to be firmly in the rotation this year, even with some higher end WRs added to the room. They are valuable meat-and-potatoes elements of this roster. Tight end Gunnar Helm is somebody who we’re all excited to see get closer to his potential in year two. But there’s a reason why these players were for round pics and not the fourth overall pick.

“Wide receiver Carnell Tate will revive the Tennessee Titans passing offense,” Klassen said bluntly. “Here’s how: Last year’s pass catching core in Tennessee made life difficult on rookie quarterback Cam Ward. While their raw drop numbers weren’t very alarming, Titans pass catchers consistently struggled to bring in tough passes, attack the ball with the proper mechanics, or show good awareness of zone coverages or where the first down marker was. Tate solves all of those issues. He is always open and always attacking the ball with textbook technique.”

As he put simply later in the video, “Tate is everything that last year’s Titans receivers were not.” This was no doubt a part of the equation in Mike Borgonzi‘s decision to take Tate as high as fourth overall. So much has been made about how he isn’t the prototypical top-5 pick WR1 in a draft. There are plenty of sharp evaluators who think he will never end up being a prototypical NFL WR1. But for the Titans right now, everything revolves around Cam Ward. The future of this team, in terms of wins and losses and in terms of jobs retained or lost, rest on Ward’s shoulders.

If he becomes a franchise quarterback, this team will return to relevancy quickly. If he does not, he’ll be back to the drawing board and the odds are that some heads will roll.

So when faced with the opportunity to pair Ward with a weapon like Carnell Tate, who brings ready-made refined technique and intangible ability as a rookie, the Titan said bring it on. I encourage you to go listen to the rest of Klassen‘s video, where he breaks down an example on tape of something that a developmental wide receiver like Elic Ayomanor wasn’t able to do as a rookie, but Carnell Tate will.

It may seem small on the surface, but these things matter. And small details like this add up in a hurry. It’s the difference between an unremarkable rookie season, and being projected to have one of the top 10 most productive 1st round rookie seasons of the past decade.