Tennessee TitansOur read
Written Oct 17, from his facts through last season
Five starts in, the case has barely moved. He is at 11.9 points a game against the 12.5 preseason pace we set for him, and our full-season number still reads 187, which put him QB23 on our board before the season. That is not a disaster, it is a stall. Week 5 of 2026 was his worst yet at 5 points, and week 3 of 2026 at 9.44 was not much better. The one spike, 20.02 in week 2 of 2026, looks like the outlier.
The thing to watch is how he handles pressure. Teams have gotten to him on 25% of his dropbacks this season, and he has sent it 2.96 seconds on average, so the ball comes out late more often than not. When he does throw, he is completing 1.1 percentage points below expectation on 155 tracked attempts, QB24 among the 35 quarterbacks with 50 or more tracked attempts. That is a second-year accuracy problem, not a bad-luck one. Five touchdowns through the first five weeks of 2026 keeps the scoring alive, but the support around him is thin and his bye week in 2026 is still ahead of him.
What he needs is a lift from the new staff. Robert Saleh and Brian Daboll are both new this year, and 2025 showed the shape of the problem: 187 points over 17 games, above the weekly median just 4 times. We would hold him through the bye, but a manager with a healthy backup should not start Ward until that completion number turns around.