{"id":73872,"date":"2025-08-16T10:26:13","date_gmt":"2025-08-16T10:26:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/73872\/"},"modified":"2025-08-16T10:26:13","modified_gmt":"2025-08-16T10:26:13","slug":"titans-ward-happy-for-more-reps-in-shaky-preseason-start","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/73872\/","title":{"rendered":"Titans&#8217; Ward happy for &#8216;more reps&#8217; in shaky preseason start"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/1755339973_345_davenport_turron.png&#038;h=80&#038;w=80&#038;scale=crop.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"40\" height=\"40\"\/><\/p>\n<p>Turron DavenportAug 16, 2025, 12:48 AM ET<\/p>\n<p><a class=\"icon-font-after icon-close-solid-after\" href=\"#\">Close<\/a>Turron Davenport covers the Tennessee Titans for ESPN since 2018. Turron is a former collegiate football player at Cheyney University and is a native of Philadelphia, and he has authored\/co-authored four books. You can catch Turron on ESPN Radio on his show &#8220;Talking with TD.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>ATLANTA &#8212; The second preseason game wasn&#8217;t kind to rookie quarterback <a data-player-guid=\"9f4e87b5-5da8-38c0-9951-e3496b55b3c8\" href=\"https:\/\/www.espn.com\/nfl\/player\/_\/id\/4688380\/cameron-ward\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Cameron Ward<\/a> and the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.espn.com\/nfl\/team\/_\/name\/ten\/tennessee-titans\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Tennessee Titans<\/a>&#8216; first-team offense Friday night. Ward completed only two of his seven pass attempts for 42 yards against the <a data-clubhouse-guid=\"49fd392a-86fe-4df3-1b77-9bbfa18b2ad5\" href=\"https:\/\/www.espn.com\/nfl\/team\/_\/name\/atl\/atlanta-falcons\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Atlanta Falcons<\/a> in Tennessee&#8217;s <a href=\"https:\/\/www.espn.com\/nfl\/game\/_\/gameId\/401773017\/titans-falcons\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">23-20 win<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>Titans coach Brian Callahan planned to have Ward play two series. But that changed after the offense struggled on the first two series.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;I wanted to send them back out there,&#8221; Callahan said after the game. &#8220;I think just the play number was still low. Those penalties kind of knocked us out of some of those favorable down distances and we didn&#8217;t convert third downs, and so we wanted to get them one more series because the play count was still relatively low. So, I felt like it was good for him to go back out there.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Editor&#8217;s Picks<\/p>\n<p>2 Related<\/p>\n<p>What might have been Ward&#8217;s best throw, which was intended for veteran wide receiver <a data-player-guid=\"0ca790ac-6cfd-f910-f4a4-ad515ef5add6\" href=\"https:\/\/www.espn.com\/nfl\/player\/_\/id\/3930066\/van-jefferson\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Van Jefferson<\/a>, fell incomplete. It would have been a big gain and put the Titans on Atlanta&#8217;s 30-yard line in the first series. Ward tried to convince Callahan to give him a third series last week against the <a data-clubhouse-guid=\"13e8b157-a75a-ff24-ae91-fa3d52ddf204\" href=\"https:\/\/www.espn.com\/nfl\/team\/_\/name\/tb\/tampa-bay-buccaneers\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Tampa Bay Buccaneers<\/a>. Ward was happy to get an additional series Friday.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;That&#8217;s just more reps for me,&#8221; Ward said after the game. &#8220;I&#8217;d probably say the biggest thing I emphasize is making it hard on myself in practice for when I have a real rush coming at me. I think over time I&#8217;ll continue to get better every week.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>The Titans wrapped up a productive week of joint practices with Friday&#8217;s win. Ward had to play without starting receivers <a data-player-guid=\"4bfb2401-3499-7fb7-2eea-a237345fed6a\" href=\"https:\/\/www.espn.com\/nfl\/player\/_\/id\/3925357\/calvin-ridley\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Calvin Ridley<\/a> and <a data-player-guid=\"a8cf5c88-bce4-87e9-fbba-dadbfbb19981\" href=\"https:\/\/www.espn.com\/nfl\/player\/_\/id\/2577327\/tyler-lockett\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Tyler Lockett<\/a>, who were given the day off. Ward said he liked the way Ridley competed with Falcons cornerback <a href=\"https:\/\/www.espn.com\/nfl\/player\/_\/id\/4239995\/aj-terrell-jr\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">A.J. Terrell Jr.<\/a> during the week and is ready to wrap up the preseason at home against the <a data-clubhouse-guid=\"3db556c9-ed76-a7a5-4ccb-a92fc6db4334\" href=\"https:\/\/www.espn.com\/nfl\/team\/_\/name\/min\/minnesota-vikings\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Minnesota Vikings<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;I felt real good seeing good guys like A.J. Terrell and [Ridley],&#8221; Ward said. &#8220;I think that&#8217;s a connection that was only going to get better, me with Rid, along with the other receivers. So, I&#8217;m excited to see where we can go. Looking forward to next week, playing a good defensive Minnesota.&#8221;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Turron DavenportAug 16, 2025, 12:48 AM ET CloseTurron Davenport covers the Tennessee Titans for ESPN since 2018. Turron&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":73873,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[436],"tags":[49,48,514,82],"class_list":["post-73872","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nfl","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-nfl","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/73872","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=73872"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/73872\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/73873"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=73872"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=73872"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=73872"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}