PHOENIX – Cam Ward has started throwing the football, and everything the Titans said about their quarterback here this week points to progress, and improvement.
“We’ll take it week by week,” Titans General Manager Mike Borgonzi said of Ward. “But he is on track.”
Ward is coming off a rookie season when he threw for 3,169 yards, 15 touchdowns and seven interceptions, with a passer rating of 80.3. He showed tremendous improvement in the final weeks of his rookie season.
Ward is also coming off a right shoulder injury that forced him to begin the offseason doing rehab.
Titans coach Robert Saleh said Ward has been working in the building, and sometimes on his own.
“He is in there, he is working with the trainers, working in the weight room,” Saleh said. “We are up to date. I am not going to put a timetable on anything (on his injury), but he is progressing really well.”
Saleh has studied Ward plenty since being hired as the team’s head coach back in January.
Saleh said he has seen something else from Ward that has left him even more impressed, and it has nothing to do with his ability on the field.
“I try to observe people from afar, and Cam is there every day,” Saleh said. “Obviously we can’t talk ball with him (because of NFL rules), but I can watch him interact with the people in the building. I think it is very impressive for a young man to walk through the building and know everybody by name from the janitors to the chefs to the trainers, and he addresses them by name. He is a really, really good man. I just think his head is on the right way, he has the right work ethic. I just don’t see him failing.”
There’s something Saleh is really looking forward to seeing when the offseason program begins next week, and football interaction is allowed between coaches and players.
Saleh thinks Ward’s relationship with offensive coordinator Brian Daboll will be fun to observe.
“That’s going to be awesome,” Saleh said with a smile. “I’m sure they’ll bicker at each other every once in a while, and they’ll challenge each other often. But that is the exact temperament that you want out of your quarterback.”
Ward, who started all 17 games for the Titans in 2025, played every snap before suffering a right shoulder injury in the season finale at the Jaguars.
Ward’s 540 attempts in 2025 were more than every quarterback in franchise history in a season other than Warren Moon, who had 655 attempts in 1991 and 584 attempts in 1990.
The Titans will spend the offseason helping Ward, and the team improve.
Behind Ward, the Titans say they have some decisions to make.
After signing veteran Mitchell Trubisky in free agency, the Titans now have four quarterbacks in the room, including Will Levis. On Wednesday, the Titans also signed former University of Tennessee QB Hendon Hooker, who spent time previously with the Lions, Panthers and Jets.
Both Borgonzi and Saleh were complimentary of both Trubisky and Levis while talking “competition” for the spot behind Ward. The coach and the GM spoke at the owners meetings on Monday and Tuesday, respectively, before Wednesday’s deal with Hooker.
Saleh said the battle will elevate whoever the back-up is while saying it’s “too early to close the door” on Levis, a second round pick in the 2024 NFL Draft.
Now, Hooker is also in the mix.
“I think you can’t have enough good quarterbacks in the room,” Borgonzi said. “Will has been great, he has been in there working out and I know he is ready to go, feels healthy. I think everyone has a clean slate in terms of the back-ups there. Cam is obviously the starter, but competition brings out the best in everyone.”
