{"id":66399,"date":"2025-05-21T02:06:10","date_gmt":"2025-05-21T02:06:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/66399\/"},"modified":"2025-05-21T02:06:10","modified_gmt":"2025-05-21T02:06:10","slug":"how-good-will-cam-ward-be-in-2025-first-examine-tennessee-titans-opponents-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/66399\/","title":{"rendered":"How good will Cam Ward be in 2025? First, examine Tennessee Titans’ opponents"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Tennessee Titans<\/a> can do everything in their power to surround rookie quarterback Cam Ward<\/a> with the best offensive line and skill players possible to set him up to succeed.<\/p>\n

That still doesn’t mean the Titans<\/a> have any control over the 11 players on the other side of the line of scrimmage.<\/a><\/p>\n

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The Titans picked Ward<\/a> with the No. 1 pick in the 2025 NFL Draft<\/a>, presumably to install him as their Day 1 starter and establish him as the franchise’s quarterback of the present and future<\/a>. Coming off a 3-14 season where quarterbacks Will Levis and Mason Rudolph were among the league’s most turnover prone passers, the additions of Ward, a revamped offensive line and a cadre of new pass catchers figure to represent a recommitment to fixing the passing game.<\/p>\n

Other teams know this too. Stopping Ward and the Titans’ revamped offense will be a top priority for the 14 squads the Titans have on their schedule for 2025. So ahead of the NFL’s 2025 schedule announcement on May 14, let’s take a look at who the Titans will play in the fall and what that means for Ward’s chances of breaking out as a rookie.<\/p>\n

CAM WARD’S STORY: Don’t believe Cam Ward will be Tennessee Titans’ hero? This is how he’ll prove you wrong<\/a><\/p>\n

Tennessee Titans<\/a> opponents 2025: Which defenses stand out?<\/p>\n

Per ESPN analyst Mike Clay’s<\/a> unit projections, the Titans<\/a> will face the second-easiest schedule in the NFL next year. These, of course, are the perks of coming off a last-place season in the NFL’s weakest division. But that doesn’t mean Ward isn’t going to have his fair share of challenges ahead.<\/p>\n

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Ten of the Titans’ 17 games next season will be against teams with average or above-average graded secondaries per Clay’s rankings, and 14 of the 17 games will be against squads with average or above-average edge rusher rooms. Barring injury, Ward’s debut season will include matchups against five of the six cornerbacks who made the NFL All-Pro team in 2024, as well as two All-Pro edge rushers, two All-Pro interior defensive linemen, two All-Pro inside linebackers and an All-Pro safety.<\/p>\n

Cam Ward predictions: What kind of pressure will he face?<\/p>\n

The Titans play three opponents in 2025 that ranked in the top-10 in blitz rate a season ago: Kansas City, Denver and Cleveland. Throw in New Orleans, which hired a heavy-blitzing defensive coordinator in Brandon Staley, and Ward should have four games against teams that build their identity around dialing up pressures.<\/p>\n

Several opponents will take the opposite approach. Teams like Jacksonville, Indianapolis, New England and San Francisco either ranked near the bottom of the league in blitz rate in 2024, hired historically-conservative defensive coaches or both.<\/p>\n

NFL schedule question: Will Cam Ward face tough conditions?<\/p>\n

The two games to circle here are road contests against Denver and Cleveland. If those contests get scheduled after Nov. 1, there’s a good chance Ward will have to survive some pretty nasty elements. Other than that, weather shouldn’t be much of a factor unless conditions get rough in Nashville late in the year.<\/p>\n

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ESTES: With Mike Borgonzi, Tennessee Titans are starting to resemble a well-run team again <\/a><\/p>\n

Titans 2025 predictions: What does all this mean for Cam Ward?<\/p>\n

Between games against Houston, Indianapolis, Denver, New England, Arizona, Cleveland and Seattle, it wouldn’t be a shock if Ward played somewhere between 5-10 games against top-10 defenses. He’ll have to evade the rushes of players like Maxx Crosby, Nick Bosa, Chris Jones and Will Anderson Jr., while fitting passes into windows defenders by Patrick Surtain II, Derek Stingley Jr., Trent McDuffie, Derwin James and Christian Gonzalez. Defensive masterminds like Steve Spagnuolo, Vance Joseph, Robert Saleh and, yes, Mike Vrabel will have opportunities to scheme against him.<\/p>\n

Ward hardly inherits a cake-walk schedule. At the very least, Ward really needs the Titans’ moves on the offensive line to pay quick dividends, because the scariest trend on this Titans’ schedule is how many dominant pass rushers the team will face this fall.<\/p>\n

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Nick Suss is the Titans beat writer for The Tennessean. Contact Nick at\u00a0 nsuss@gannett.com<\/a>. Follow Nick on X, the platform formerly called Twitter, @nicksuss.<\/p>\n

This article originally appeared on Nashville Tennessean: Breaking down Cam Ward’s opponents in 2025: How tough do Titans have it?<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Tennessee Titans can do everything in their power to surround rookie quarterback Cam Ward with the best…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":25419,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[2061],"tags":[375,127,2025,6032,85,231,1085,4919,7,221,2004,212,560,6563,1167,896,6,1515,8206,1161,237,11178,526,394,2411,4045,527,4223,6051,1246],"class_list":{"0":"post-66399","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-tennessee-titans","8":"tag-arizona","9":"tag-cam-ward","10":"tag-chris-jones","11":"tag-christian-gonzalez","12":"tag-cleveland","13":"tag-denver","14":"tag-derek-stingley-jr","15":"tag-derwin-james","16":"tag-football","17":"tag-houston","18":"tag-indianapolis","19":"tag-jacksonville","20":"tag-mason-rudolph","21":"tag-maxx-crosby","22":"tag-new-england","23":"tag-new-orleans","24":"tag-nfl","25":"tag-nick-bosa","26":"tag-patrick-surtain-ii","27":"tag-san-francisco","28":"tag-seattle","29":"tag-stopping-ward","30":"tag-tennessee","31":"tag-tennessee-titans","32":"tag-tennesseetitans","33":"tag-the-titans","34":"tag-titans","35":"tag-trent-mcduffie","36":"tag-will-anderson-jr","37":"tag-will-levis"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nfl\/114543380746844110","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/66399","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=66399"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/66399\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/25419"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=66399"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=66399"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=66399"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}