The Tennessee Titans held a padded practice in front of fans on Sunday afternoon, their last session before packing up and heading to San Francisco for joint practices on Tuesday and a preseason opener on Thursday (in Santa Clara).

A few things stood out from the day that are worth digging into from the first normal practice after the Saturday night scrimmage at Nissan Stadium. Easton Freeze and I break it all down.

Carnell Tate has best day, catches 3 touchdown passes from Cam Ward

Stanley: Carnell Tate dominated Titans training camp on Sunday, catching three touchdown passes from quarterback Cam Ward in a single move-the-ball period. The rookie wide receiver beat all three of the Titans’ top cornerbacks and added another highlight catch during a backed-up drill, cementing his status as the most explosive pass catcher at camp so far.

Tate’s three touchdowns came over Alontae Taylor, Cor’Dale Flott, and Marcus Harris. One of the scores came from outside the red zone (vs Taylor) while the other two came inside it, with one near the goal line. A couple of other media members on the sidelines confirmed it was his best day at camp.

The Titans introduced a new drill Sunday that camp hadn’t seen yet. The offense started backed up on its own 3- or 5-yard line, and the objective was to generate that first bit of momentum and pick up an initial first down. Ward and the first-team offense converted on third down, and he went to the sideline quickly to hit Tate on what some on X call the “sideline seed.”

Ward then told defensive linemen Jeff Simmons and Jermaine Johnson how good it looked. When you need a contested catch on the boundary, Tate is a cheat code.

Red zone drill breakdown and QB pecking order

Stanley: Ward threw two touchdowns in the red zone period, both to Tate. Mitch Trubisky started off slow but finished stronger, throwing two touchdowns of his own. One went to Tajae Spears at the back of the end zone, and the other went to David Martin-Robinson.

Worth noting: Will Levis did not score any touchdowns in those drills. The third-year quarterback’s lack of production in the red zone period is something to monitor as the Titans prepare for preseason.

The run game is coming together

Freeze: It’s always tricky during training camp trying to figure out what is actually believable when it comes to the run game. These aren’t live tackling periods. It’s a lot of wrap-ups, two-hand touch, and simulated tackles. But you also get some looks that resemble Oklahoma drills in the gap, where you can see the initial contact between the offensive line and the defensive line and determine whether it was a win one way or the other. Those reps create opportunities that would turn into athlete-in-space situations in a real game, and that’s the kind of thing you’re looking for when trying to gauge what’s actually working.

The movement skills, vision, and cutting ability of the running backs have been pretty impressive so far. Tyjae Spears, Nick Singleton, and Tony Pollard all looked the part on Sunday in a way that lines up with what I’ve heard from behind the scenes: the Titans are quietly pretty excited about this running back group so far.

Spears and Pollard are the top dogs and got most of the reps, as they do each day. But the way this run game is coming together with an offensive line that we don’t have a ton of faith in yet is something fans can be tentatively excited about. We’re going to get a much better look at how it translates once actual tackling enters the equation in the preseason, especially if, as coach Robert Saleh has said, the first-team guys play a decent amount.

Alontae Taylor is setting the tone at cornerback

Freeze: One small note worth highlighting: free agent cornerback addition Alontae Taylor is a feisty DB! I love his energy. He is apparently trying to fight everybody out here, one at a time. He’s gotten into scuffles with wide receiver Elic Ayomanor. He got into it with rookie offensive lineman Fernando Carmona on Sunday. He’s just going at it with anybody in his orbit, getting tangled up in the extracurriculars.

It’s not over the top. He’s not out of control. But Taylor is clearly demonstrating that junkyard dog cornerback mentality, setting the tone in a way that is really exciting for a secondary that needs it.

Right guard competition gets a new wrinkle

Freeze: A bit of an offensive line update as we continue to monitor the starting right guard situation: we know that Jackson Slater, the second-year homegrown player, and Cordell Volson, a free agent addition, are the two primary contenders for the job. But Sunday was our first real Fernando Carmona day. The rookie was in there for the majority of practice, with only a little bit of the other two veterans mixed in.

What does that mean? We need more data.

Does it mean Tennessee is considering other options beyond the top two contenders for the job, or does it mean they’re simply going to continue allowing younger guys to at least have a shot? Saleh said at the very beginning of camp that their rotation and who they have playing where each day is going to seem a little funny sometimes based on what we know to be true about the depth chart. That’s by design, just to see what the maximum ability of certain players is.

For now, it’s something to monitor. If the Titans continue to give Carmona more run up the depth chart, that would be an indictment of the two guys primarily competing for the job. But if it’s a one-off thing, I think it’s in line with what Saleh has said about the way he’s running his camp in general.