Jaguars' Rival Titans Already Mishandling QB Situation

The Jacksonville Jaguars don't have many questions about their quarterback room. And to the Tennessee Titans' credit, there are not many real questions about their's either.

The Titans selected Miami quarterback Cam Ward with the No. 1 pick in April's NFL Draft, and it has been clear since even before Ward was picked that he would be the Titans' Week 1 starting quarterback.

That is why the Titans going the expected, but still odd, path of having Ward share reps with former starting quarterback Will Levis doesn't make much sense.

"Right now, it's all evenly split," Callahan said via TennesseeTitans.com. "We're not competing right now. It will change probably a little bit when we get to the OTAs and we have 7-on-7 and some team work and stuff like that. But right now, we're not really going against anybody, so we just roll through it ... They're roughly about even all the way through, which is pretty standard for this time of year."

No, it isn't a season-defining move for Ward to not take every first-team reps in early offseason practices. But is there any actual advantage?

The best comparison would be for the 2021 Jaguars and how they handled Trevor Lawrence and Gardner Minshew. In the name of a faux compeititon, Lawrence lost a ton of first-team reps to Minshew even throughout training camp.

When the offense looked like a mess and Lawrence looked overwhelmed early on in his career, it was clear Urban Meyer and his staff made a mistake by not putting everything on Lawrence's plate.

There is zero reality where Levis is the starting quarterback this year based on merit. As long as Ward is healthy and on the field, he is the one who should be under center.

The best thing a team can do to prepare a young quarterback is by simply throwing him to the fire and forcing him to get the max amount of reps.

Ward will be the Titans quarterback for some time, and you can expect him to be the quarterback the Jaguars face off against twice this year and beyond.

But the Titans are also making some of the same mistakes early on with Ward that the Jaguars made years ago. Let's see if they figure it out sooner than the Jaguars did.