No surprises out of the box as the Titans secured Cam Ward with the first overall selection.
Ward has a low bar to clear for this to become an immediate upgrade for Tennessee.
The team received bottom-rung quarterback play in 2024, with their passers combining to rank 30th in the NFL in EPA per dropback (-0.09).
They were 27th in success rate (38.1%), while 19.4% of their dropbacks resulted in losing -1.0 EPA or worse (31st).
With that in mind, let's look at Cam Ward's 2025 fantasy football outlook and how he will affect the 2025 Titans offense.
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Cam Ward 2025 Fantasy Football Outlook
I wish we had a larger sample of Ward facing front-end caliber competition, but the passing resume is strong.
After spending two seasons at Washington State, Ward threw 39 touchdown passes with 7 interceptions at Miami this past season.
After averaging 6.5 and 7.7 yards per pass attempt in his first two seasons, he spiked to 9.5 yards per pass attempt this year.
51.1% of his passes resulted in a first down or touchdowns, the highest rate of this class.
Ward closed his collegiate career with a passing production grade in the 90th percentile among passers invited to the Combine in the 2000s.
Ward has a gunslinger mindset, and scouts suggest he needs to be reined in at the next level.
There is merit to that under the proper context.
You often will hear him compared to Jameis Winston, but he was much more reckless with the football overall than Ward in college, which bled into Winston’s NFL portfolio.
The stickiest areas for collegiate production carrying over to the NFL are accuracy, turnovers, and sacks taken.
A player like Winston had red flags in those areas, closing his collegiate career with a TD-to-interception ratio in the eighth percentile among passers in their final season.
His completion rate in his final season was the 59th percentile.
Ward has posted an interception rate below 2% in all three seasons as a starter.
Throwing 5.6 touchdowns for every interception this season, he ranks in the 87th percentile for final season production in that department and the 85th percentile for his collegiate career.
His final season completion rate was in the 73rd percentile. He was in the 78th percentile for his career.
That said, there was some fortune for Ward under pressure, and he was at his best in the pocket, so you hear some of the concerns when he goes into “hero mode.”
According to Pro Football Focus, Ward's 7.5% turnover-worthy play rate when pressured was the highest of this draft class.
Even though he protected the ball overall, his mistakes came when pressured.
His 54% on-target rate on throws outside the pocket was the lowest in this draft class this past season, while his 5.8% interception rate outside the pocket was the highest.
He loves to extend plays.
Averaging 2.93 seconds from the snap to throw this past season, his time to throw was the second-longest of any quarterback in this class.
Despite holding the football, Ward did not take a ton of sacks, at least.
His 4.5% sack rate was average for this class.
18.9% of Ward’s pressures were credited as his fault for holding the ball per Pro Football Focus, but he only took two sacks on those 21 pressures credited as his fault.
That 9.5% sack rate on self-induced pressure was the lowest of this draft class this past season.
Ward inherently wants to push the ball downfield, so he is prone to holding it.
His holding the ball did not result in many self-induced sacks, which was positive.
Ward was successful when he pushed the ball downfield.
He threw the second-highest rate of passes 10 or more yards downfield, completing 58.7% of his passes 10 or more yards downfield, which was second in this class.
Will Howard completed 61%, but also attempted 38 fewer of those passes despite playing in three more games than Ward.
18.9% of his throws of 20 or more yards downfield were touchdown passes, second in this class.
Against the blitz, Ward completed 69.5% of his passes (third), while 51.2% of his passes when blitzed resulted in a first down or touchdown (second).
49.9% of Ward’s passes from a clean pocket went for a first down or touchdown, the highest rate in the class.
His 10.1 yards per pass attempt from a clean pocket were second.
Ward did not have inflated production due to the scheme.
Only 10.8% of his yardage came on screen passes, ninth in the class.
29.4% of his dropbacks came with play-action, eighth in the class.
He led the class with 9.8 yards per pass attempt on non-play-action passes.
Removing all of the easy buttons (play action, pre-snap motion, RPO, and screens), Ward led the class with 11.2 yards per attempt.
Where Ward did run into issues was in the red zone with a condensed field.
He completed 53.9% of his passes in the red zone this past season, the second-lowest rate in this class.
His rushing production will likely come with week-to-week variance in the NFL, but he can provide rushing output as a bonus for fantasy points.
Ward ended his career with a rushing profile in the 63rd percentile.
His rushing production was nearly entirely built on scrambles versus designed rushing usage, so I suggest it will come with a weekly variance.
Ward only had four designed runs last season.
That means Ward’s fantasy production will still rely on weekly passing output, which makes him more of a QB2 who can moonlight as a QB1 in a hot season, but he will have to throw a lot of touchdowns.
At his apex, we hope for something similar to what we had from C.J. Stroud or Justin Herbert early in their careers.
However, those examples caution against pushing him too highly since this is still a pass-first player capable of adding some rushing production rather than being a consistent runner who can also pass.
Still, solid components are in place for him in Tennessee to be a useful QB2 in 2QB formats and a streaming upside option in 1QB formats.
Calvin Ridley 2025 Fantasy Football Outlook
Tennessee aggressively added Calvin Ridley last offseason, who collected 64 of 120 targets (53.3%) for 1,017 yards and 4 touchdowns in his first year with the team.
Ridley’s 3.8 receptions per game were a career low, but his 15.9 yards per catch was a career high.
That was the story for Ridley’s season in a nutshell.
He was forced to live as a downfield asset attached to inefficient quarterback play, especially when playing with Will Levis under center.
Ridley averaged a career-high 15.7 air yards per target.
26.7% of his targets were 20 or more yards downfield.
The only other wide receivers with 100-plus targets on the season who had a higher rate were DK Metcalf (31.5%), George Pickens (29.6%), and Jordan Addison (28%).
With Levis on the field, 18.6% of his targets were inaccurate throws compared to only a 10% rate from Mason Rudolph.
While Ward’s deep accuracy can help maximize Ridley’s target tree from 2024, it would be a bonus to see the Tennessee coaching staff do more to get him the ball in the short to intermediate areas of the field moving forward.
I have considered Ridley a value at his opening ADP since he still projects to have a large target share and is getting a quarterback upgrade.
He has been going right around WR40 in early drafts, and I do not expect his value to spike too greatly since Ward has long been the projected pick here for the Titans.
We have seen players such as Nico Collins, Terry McLaurin, and Courtland Sutton get immediate bumps in production attached to rookie quarterback upgrades in the WR3 range, where Ridley is being drafted.
Ridley will be a target of mine as long as he stays at that cost, especially in the Best Ball formats.
We still expect the Titans to draft another young pass catcher for Ward, but there is some added insulation that this offensive line could jump if they keep everyone healthy.
Last year, the most frequently used combination across the line was on the field for only 28.9% of their offensive snaps (25th).
Tennessee spent heavily on center Lloyd Cushenberry last offseason, but he only played in 8 games.
The core is in place, with Cushenberry paired with Peter Skoronski and JC Latham as high-capital draft picks on rookie deals.
This offseason, Tennessee signed Dan Moore to a four-year contract worth up to $82 million.
Moore is expected to play left tackle, with Latham sliding over to right tackle in his second season, but we could have a competition this summer.
Right tackle was a major issue last season, with Nicholas Petit-Frere (614 snaps), John Ojukwu (217), and Leroy Watson (191) all rotating into action at the position.
Petit-Frere allowed a team-high 10.9% pressure rate with 11 sacks.
He also tied for a team-high 10 penalties.
Tennessee also inked veteran Kevin Zeitler to a one-year contract to play opposite Skoronski.
Zeitler just turned 35 this March, but remains a reliable player on the interior.
TL;DR Fantasy Impact Notes
Cam Ward – Upside QB2
Calvin Ridley – Target at WR3+ cost
