3 Biggest Offseason Questions for the Tennessee Titans

The Titans are one of five NFL teams without a prime time game in their 2026 schedule, joining the Arizona Cardinals, Las Vegas Raiders, Miami Dolphins, and New York Jets. It's the second straight year the team hasn't been in prime time, which should be expected when you're not in a major market, and you win a total of six games over two seasons.

However, if you weren't watching the Titans specifically, you may have missed the maturation of 2025 first overall pick Cam Ward. The Miami (FL) alum started off rough in his rookie season — from Weeks 1-9, he completed 170 of 295 passes for 1,760 yards, five touchdowns, six interceptions, and a passer rating of 72.1. But starting in Week 10 through Week 18, Ward turned it around pretty decisively, completing 153 of 245 passes for 1,409 yards, 10 touchdowns, one interception, and a passer rating of 90.0.

Not bad for a guy who was facing some pretty tough defenses in the second half of the season (the Seahawks, San Francisco 49ers, and Los Angeles Chargers among them), and had Elic Ayomanor, Chigoziem Okonkwo, and Chimere Dike as his primary receivers.

"He is a young professional," Daboll said of Ward in early May. "He wants to be great. He is instinctive. When we are just watching the tape, he is able to communicate the things that he sees and why he did certain things when we watch the tape from last year. When we are installing the new system to him, concepts and things like that, he is able to pick things up very quickly. It has been awesome to work with him."

There are all kinds of reasons to be encouraged about Ward's potential second-year breakout, and a primary cause is the guy the Titans took with the fourth overall pick in the 2026 draft.

Can Carnell Tate become the much-needed WR1?

Not to cast aspersions on the targets Ward had in 2025, but the Titans signed former New York Giants receiver Wan'dale Robinson to a four-year, $70 million contract with $38 million guaranteed. This should make a difference because Robinson worked well in the Giants' offense when Daboll was the head coach.

Robinson may be a good complementary receiver, but everyone knew that the team needed a true WR1, and that's why they took Ohio State's Carnell Tate with that fourth overall pick. Last season, the 6-foot-2 1/4, 192-pound Tate caught 51 passes for 875 yards and nine touchdowns, and while he stood in the shadow of Jeremiah Smith, Tate also showed what he could do as an outstanding route-runner and contested-catch guy. Maybe Tate isn't a downfield burner per se, but there were similar speed questions about Jaxon Smith-Njigba when he came out of Ohio State in 2023, and Smith-Njigba may be the NFL's best receiver at this point in time.

"Well, he's a bigger, vertical guy," general manager Mike Borgonzi said of Tate after the pick was made. "The route-running, very efficient. I thought he had exceptional ball skills to be able to track the football, [with] catch radius downfield. I think he's going to be a great fit in this offense. And you know, he's 20 years old last year playing at Ohio State. He's a young kid. But Tate has the ability to play big downfield. That's the one thing, all these contested catches downfield, his ability to go up and catch the football, contort his body in certain ways.

"I think it's going to be great for Cam Ward."

Tate at the top of the receiver list puts everyone else where they need to be, and where their own skills dictate, which will bring better balance to the offense. And Tate has the skills to get that done.

Will the defense be better with all the new additions?

Titans interior defensive lineman Jeffery Simmons won my Cortez Kennedy Award for the 2025 season, which I like to give to the defensive player who did the most on the team that did the least — in 1992, Kennedy was the NFL's Defensive Player of the Year for a Seattle Seahawks team that went 2-14, and had one of the worst offenses... well, ever.

That was one of the things that made Kennedy a Hall of Famer, and Simmons is on the same track. While all around him was chaos, Simmons had his usual marvelous season, with 12 sacks, 64 pressures, 16 tackles for loss, and three forced fumbles.

The same was true in 2024.

A defensive reboot was one reason the Titans (who finished 29th in Defensive DVOA last season) hired Saleh to be the new head coach, and the team did quite a bit to get back on the horse. They traded DI T'Vondre Sweat to the New York Jets for edge-rusher Jermaine Johnson II, added DI John Franklin-Myers and cornerbacks Alontae Taylor and Cor'dale Flott in free agency, and added Auburn edge-rusher Keldrick Faulk and Texas linebacker Anthony Hill Jr. in the first and second rounds, respectively, of the 2026 draft.

Saleh perfers a four-down defense in which schematic complexity is not the order of the day; this is more about guys flying around like banshees and hitting whatever they see.

"Edge-rushers are playmakers, too," Saleh said at the 2026 owners meetings in March. "When you are drafting that high … you are looking at: Who can change the game in one play? And, edge-rushers can change the game in one play. [Arizona Cardinals running back Jeremiyah Love] is a very talented young man and he can change it in one play. There's receivers who can change it in one play.

"Right now, we need guys, and we need to develop guys currently on our roster, who can change the game in one play. When you are looking at all these guys from a consistency standpoint, who can flip the game on its head? Edge-rushers can close it, and skill guys can end it."

Between Saleh's expertise and the new talent, the Titans could see a rise to league average on that side of the ball... which is the point for the whole organization right now.