The most important quest in the NFL season is that for the Super Bowl, which the Philadelphia Eagles completely pretty decisively in 2024-25. The less heralded one is that for the league’s worst record and the first overall pick, as losing teams hope to turn their franchise around by drafting a generational talent on a cheap contract. The race to the bottom is especially prominent when there’s a can’t-miss prospect at the top of the draft.
That isn’t the case this year, but regardless, the Tennessee Titans are surely happy that they earned the honor of selecting first on April 24 by losing each of their final six games of the season. Tennessee had a multitude of problems in 2024, but the expectation is that they’ll take former University of Miami quarterback Cam Ward with the first overall pick.
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Who will be the No. 1 pick in the NFL Draft?
It’s fair to say at this point that the Will Levis experiment has been a complete failure. Drafted for his upside with the Titans’ 33rd overall pick in 2023, Levis has completed just 61.0% of his passes across his first two seasons in the NFL and nearly as many interceptions as touchdowns and allowing a sky-high sack rate. He was also benched for Mason Rudolph twice during his second season — not exactly the sign of a franchise quarterback. The highs have still been high, but there have been too many lows for Tennessee to consider moving forward with him.
With Ward, the Titans will get a similarly boom-or-bust project with the arm talent to make pro-level throws who occasionally gets too aggressive and doesn’t process the game quickly enough, much like Levis. His production in college was excellent — across five seasons at three different schools, he managed to rack up an NCAA record 158 passing touchdowns over the course of his career — and he has enough mobility to keep plays alive behind Tennessee’s weak offensive line, which was a bottom-10 pass-blocking unit and even worse in run support. Still, he’ll need to tighten up his mechanics in order to be consistent against NFL schemes in a much faster game.
Thankfully for Ward, Titans head coach Brian Callahan has a history of developing high-quality quarterbacks. LSU signal-caller Joe Burrow was a more sure prospect when he was drafted first overall by the Cincinnati Bengals in 2020, but under Callahan, who was his offensive coordinator for his first four seasons, he has developed into a bona fide superstar. In his first five seasons, Burrow has led the Bengals to a Super Bowl — their first since 1989 — finished in the top five of MVP voting twice, and has the highest career completion percentage in NFL history. If Callahan can develop Ward into a player even 80% as good as Burrow, Tennessee will have a foundational piece for what is sure to be a lengthy rebuild.
In interviews, Callahan has already revealed the four players at the top of the Titans’ draft board, which also includes Penn State edge rusher Abdul Carter, Colorado cornerback/wide receiver Travis Hunter, and Buffaloes quarterback Shedeur Sanders in addition to Ward. Each of those players has their strengths: Carter is probably the most talented player in the class at any position, Hunter has elite athleticism and plays both sides of the ball at a high level, and Sanders is a better pure pocket passer than Ward and probably has a higher floor. Ultimately, though, quarterback is the most important position in the game, and Ward is seen as a better prospect than Sanders.
