Cam Ward's Completion Percentage Roadmap, Carnell Tate's Path to Titans Receiving Records

Where Cam Ward can most realistically improve his completion percentage and what it would take for Carnell Tate to challenge the Titans' receiving record book.

By PAUL KUHARSKY

NASHVILLE, Tenn. -- In this week's edition of The Paul Kuharsky Podcast, we took a look at two big statistical items:

Where can Cam Ward most easily find the sort of completions that will boost his percentage to a more acceptable level?

And what would it take for Carnell Tate, if he played a regular-length career of a first-round receiver, all with the Titans, for him to take the top spot in their record books in receptions, yards and touchdowns for the position?

We also hit on Ward's distinguishing characteristic, veteran attendance at voluntary OTAs, the Titans' views on tough and smart and much more.

You can watch on YouTube (also embedded below) or Twitter or listen on Apple, Spotify or iHeart.

As always, we are sponsored by the best place to eat in Nashville and around Middle Tennessee, Edley's BBQ.

See below for a transcript of some key moments.

 

---

Cam Ward's Completion Percentage Roadmap

Look, he needs to be more accurate and I wrote in my report yesterday, you know, some of this is him getting used to the new offense, some of this is spring ball, some of it's new receivers, right? But some of it's problematic.

I wrote about two plays in a short span of time really looked like the same play. He's dropping back. He's throwing mid-range to his left. He needs to get the ball over a defensive back to Elic Ayomanor and twice he hits Keydrain Calligan, a low-ranking cornerback, in the back of the helmet.

The first one, Ayomanor could have come back more aggressively to get the ball, but he shouldn't be in position to have to do that. An NFL quarterback has to get this throw with an arc over the defensive back where it's an easy catch for his receiver.

That's a disturbingly inaccurate throw that he should have down at a June practice of his second year.

I'm not saying you should be worried about Cam Ward. I'm saying Monday and Tuesday, the things we had to see and report on, he didn't look good.

I'm not saying burn down the barn, put in Mitch Trubisky, hold on to Will Levis, any of that stuff. I'm saying on these two days, Cam Ward didn't show a lot of improvement. He wasn't significantly more accurate.

Now I think he will be.

He did improve. Nine games in he was at like 57 percent and the final eight games he was at like 62 percent. He gained about five points and his average yards per attempt were roughly the same. So he got better as the season went on.

Let me tell you where I see Cam Ward being able to make easy gains in completion percentage.

One is in drops.

The Titans had 23 drops last season. If he threw the same number of passes this year and you cut those in half, he's got 12 more catches.

Wan'Dale Robinson doesn't drop the ball and Carnell Tate doesn't drop the ball.

Just if you did that to his numbers from last year, his completion percentage would have gone from 59.8 percent to 62 percent.

He gains two percentage points from his receivers not dropping the ball.

We saw a lot of very basic, easy drops from receivers last year. Ridley, Ayomanor, Jefferson, Kinsey had a terrible drop in the one game that he played in.

You scale those back, you could conceivably get two percentage points right there.

When he had 2.5 or more seconds to throw, his completion percentage was 53.9.

Now, that's problematic.

53.9 on plays that had time to develop.

That suggests he didn't process things well. That suggests they didn't have great plays for him in those situations. I buy that.

It suggests the weapons probably weren't doing great things downfield or he didn't have guys who could separate.

Do we think those things will get better this year?

I think unquestionably.

Are his weapons better? For sure.

Wan'Dale Robinson and Carnell Tate are a better top two than he had last year.

Will those guys do better on plays that last longer than 2.5 seconds? I think yes.

Brian Daboll, has he proven to be a better play caller than Brian Callahan or Bo Hardegree? I think unquestionably, factually, yes.

Do things stack up where Cam Ward should undoubtedly have a better completion percentage than 53.9 on plays that last 2.5 seconds or longer?

I would think yes.

RPO passes. The Titans did not run a lot of them last year.

On RPO passes, he hit 71.7 percent of his throws.

Do we think the Titans will run more RPO this year?

I do.

If they run more RPO, is he good at completing the ball on RPO?

The evidence from last year says yes.

Highest completion percentage in a lot of split scenarios, 71.7 percent.

Finally, on third down when they needed seven to nine yards, he only completed 48.5 percent of his passes.

That's low.

Do we expect better play design? Yes.

Do we expect better protection? We don't know.

Do we expect him to make better decisions? Hopefully.

Would we expect a better completion percentage than 48.5?

I would think so.

So in those four areas -- fewer drops, more RPOs, a better completion percentage on third-and-7-to-9 and a better completion percentage on plays that last 2.5 seconds or longer -- I see room there for Cam Ward to do better.

If he picks up two points here and a point and a half there and two points here, he can get himself to 65 or 66 percent.

And if he can be at 65 or 66 percent, I think that could be winning football for him.

---

Cam Ward's Big Picture

I think he's got a chance.

He's got to grow.

I think he's got a good mindset for the position.

I think he's skilled.

The quick release helps him and I think he can run and operate a football team efficiently and splash in some really big dynamic plays.

But I'm not positive.

I don't think anybody can be positive.

I think the people who are diehard positive are more on faith than they are on evidence.

But I also think to call him a bust at this stage based on what we haven't seen is absolutely ridiculous and premature.

You cannot call anybody after their rookie year a bust unless they're doing Isaiah Wilson-type things.

It's just too soon.

---

Carnell Tate's Path To The Titans Record Book

If we put Tate on a pace for 145 games, which would take him eight-plus years, I gave him nine years, he would eclipse those franchise marks.

Tate would have to average 3.7 receptions to get to 542 receptions, 54.7 yards a game and basically a touchdown every three games, 0.35 touchdowns.

So yearly that would be 60 catches, 881 yards and 5.7 touchdowns.

Do we think he's capable of those numbers?

My big point here is if Carnell Tate is good, all he has to do is play a long time.

If he plays a long time and he's good, he's going to have a chance to be the Titans' all-time leading receiver.

I don't think it's going to be exceptionally difficult if he's a thousand-yard guy for a decent stretch, which is a reasonable expectation for him as early as it is.