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It was the last week of February in Indianapolis and Tennessee Titans coach Brian Callahan already had a pretty good idea of what was going to happen two months later when his team would pull the proverbial magnet off the board and call in the first pick of the 2025 NFL draft.
Still, he was reserving the right to change his mind, and this was going to be one of the moments where it might happen—the first in which he’d really challenge Cam Ward.
In the weeks leading up to that night in a Lucas Oil Stadium suite, he’d studied every snap of Ward’s single season at Miami, the second of his two seasons at Washington State, and a smattering of plays and sequences from his first season at Wazzu and his two at Incarnate Word in San Antonio. He’d called around, and he’d talked it over with new GM Mike Borgonzi and the personnel staff. The time had come to make Ward squirm.
“You don’t draft me,” Ward told the room, “and you’re gonna pay for it.”
“Hey, man, everybody says that,” Callahan responded. “That’s the dumbest s--- I’ve ever heard. Every quarterback in the world says that now, because Tom Brady said it way back in the day.”
The coach then paused.
“Do you mean that?” Callahan continued. “Is that really you?”
“I mean it,” Ward responded. “And I stand on it.”
“O.K.,” Callahan said. “Good. At least you’re not full of s---.”
Ward is now officially a Titan.
On Thursday, just after 7 p.m. Nashville time, Borgonzi picked up that phone, dialed Ward’s number, and tied the job security of so many in the room to the quarterback on the other end of the line. These decisions are that big—you take a player at that position that high, and it’s a bet of the highest order for an NFL coach or executive.
And it was a series of moments such as the one laid out above that erased any doubt that might’ve lingered on it being the right one as February turned to March, and then April.
The Titans got their guy.
We’re recapping the draft, and that means the takeaways are loaded. In there, you’ll find …
• An honest, straightforward view on the Shedeur Sanders situation.
• How the Jacksonville Jaguars vetted Travis Hunter despite only talking to him for 15 minutes.
• Fun stories on the New York Jets’, Las Vegas Raiders’ and Carolina Panthers’ first-round picks.
And a ton more.
But we’re starting with how the Titans landed their new franchise quarterback, and the first one taken No. 1 by the franchise.
By the time that combine meeting happened, the Titans had narrowed the field for the No. 1 pick to four players—Ward, Penn State pass rusher Abdul Carter, Colorado Heisman winner Travis Hunter and Sanders.
But, again, at that point, the Miami quarterback had already gained separation.
The Titans were already well into their process, which began the moment Borgonzi’s introductory press conference ended Jan. 22. Later that day, the new GM and Callahan were on a plane to Dallas for the East–West Shrine Bowl practices. There, they’d meet two days later with Sanders, who’d come to talk with teams (rather than do any of the on-field work). Quietly, the digging on Ward started, too.
Workouts were held on the Denton campus of North Texas, about 45 minutes north of Dallas, where a guy named Eric Morris was head football coach. Borgonzi knew the name because Morris was Patrick Mahomes’s offensive coordinator at Texas Tech—the new Titans GM had come from Kansas City, where he was a part of drafting the now-three-time Super Bowl champion quarterback.
Morris left Tech in 2018 to become head coach at Incarnate Word. He recruited Ward there, then took him with him when left the FBS school to become offensive coordinator at Washington State in 2022. And while Borgonzi still had a lot to learn about the quarterback, Morris confirmed what he’d already seen on tape when they met in person in Denton.
Morris told Borgonzi that the most impressive thing about Ward was how he got better every year. He said that there were, indeed, parallels in Mahomes’s game to Ward’s—in the instincts and feel the two quarterbacks possess. Then, there was Ward as an individual.
“Just in terms of the makeup,” Morris told Borgonzi, “he’s everything you want.”
From there, Callahan, Borgonzi, new assistant GM Dave Ziegler, new VP/football advisor Reggie McKenzie and president of football operations Chad Brinker went to the Senior Bowl in Mobile, Ala., and then it was time to study the top guys before the combine.
The trouble was there was much more to work on than just the No. 1 pick. Their first two weeks back were packed with meetings where Callahan’s coordinators and position coaches presented profiles to Borgonzi, Zielger and McKenzie to give them a full view of what they’d be looking for, and a lot of time spent assessing the current roster, which had plenty of holes.
Then, at night, they’d work through the tape on the quarterbacks.
Borgonzi wanted them to first look at the guys separately so everyone could get their own independent evaluation, free of groupthink. Then, leading up to the combine, they sat together and watched them as a group.
The stuff Morris said to Borgonzi about Ward quickly came to life.
Callahan got his first impression of Ward in the fall. As the Titans’ season stumbled along, he had an idea that they’d be picking high and might be looking for a quarterback. So, “kind of by human nature,” he’d take peeks at college quarterbacks, and one was of the Miami quarterback he heard was having a nice year.
“A couple of those throws you saw, like highlight-wise, you’re like, Wow, that was a real throw,” Callahan says. “The one against Louisville, and the one where he’s throwing rolling to his left against Florida, those ones were, you’re like, Jeez, that’s a really impressive throw for a young kid. And that was about it, really. I didn’t have a ton of exposure to him.”
In February, just as Borgonzi was confirming what Morris said in his study, Callahan was affirming what he thought he saw in the Hurricane highlights he’d caught months earlier.
And the throw that really got the coach, interestingly enough, was an incompletion in the game that cost the Hurricanes a spot in the College Football Playoff—a 42–38 loss to Syracuse over Thanksgiving weekend.
“Double-A gap blitz, they blitzed the middle of the pocket, and Cam just sort of stands in there, and he changes his arm angle and delivers a strike,” Callahan says. “And it was a contested catch. The receiver dropped it, but he threw it right on the money. It was a third down. I kept rewinding and looking at him like, How did this ball even get to the target? The pocket was so muddy. And he just stood in there and ripped it.
“That’s when I realized that Cam is a real pocket passer. Like, he can function from the pocket at a really high level. And the more you watch it, the more you see it, it shows up. He doesn’t play street ball. He can read, he can react, he’s disciplined with his eyes, he gets the ball out quickly, he can work through a progression. And you saw all of that on tape.”
Borgonzi saw it, too—and in a way, having Mahomes had trained him to see quarterbacks.
As much as Mahomes was seen as an athlete coming out of Texas Tech, the Chiefs saw a quarterback who was always looking to throw rather than run and one who weaponized his legs to facilitate that, with patience and spatial awareness in the pocket. In that way, there was a parallel.
“I’m not comparing him to Pat, but some of the stuff I saw with Pat, just in terms of his instincts, spatial awareness, arm talent, arm angles, it kind of reminded me a little bit of Pat,” Titans GM Mike Borgonzi
“I’m not comparing him to Pat, but some of the stuff I saw with Pat, just in terms of his instincts, spatial awareness, arm talent, arm angles, it kind of reminded me a little bit of Pat,” Borgonzi says. “And I was careful to say it. Pat’s a future Hall of Famer and, you know, he’s got a long way to go before he ever reaches that level. But some of the stuff, just the instincts, spatial awareness, vision for the field, reminded me of Pat when I watched him.”
And soon enough, Ward’s own explanation of how those plays came together confirmed it.
What Callahan saw in the clips Borgonzi referenced was not just the spatial awareness the GM was wowed by but also a feel for where his teammates were at all times—he recalled a series of throws where Ward found a receiver that seemed to be out of his field of vision that left him thinking, “How did see that?”
So in Indy, before going into the lowlight reel and challenging Ward, Callahan wanted him to take the room through his thought process on those plays. The answers were what the coaches thought they’d be—that Ward felt a defensive lineman’s body or saw the way one of his own linemen was leaning, or he read a guy’s eyes.
“That’s when you realized he had this incredible spatial awareness,” Callahan says. “You can’t coach it. It’s an instinct, and he has outstanding instincts. A lot of it’s because he works really hard, and he studies and he understands. But there’s just another piece of it that he just feels space like all of the really good quarterbacks do. They just know where to go.”
And with that covered, they could dive into who Ward was as a person.
Callahan grilling Ward on using that clichéd line was just part of an effort during the combine interview to see if the team could rattle him. It was preceded by cutups that, bluntly, most quarterbacks would rather not see of themselves.
As one play from his days at Incarnate Word played, Ward gave the Titans their first look into how he had a brain for football that was like a steel trap.
“He remembered the play right away,” Borgonzi says.
He remembered the progression. He remembered the coverage. He remembered his mistake. Just as important, he took full responsibility for it.
And as the reel continued, showing missteps at Washington State and Miami, too, he kept taking responsibility.
“He’s like, I probably shouldn’t have done that,” Callahan says. “It was just a really, really cool interaction. And to hear him talk through that stuff, that’s when you matched up the mental part and the physical part from the tape and you’re like, I think this guy might have what you’re looking for.”
With the 30 visit, pro day and private workout on deck, the Titans would keep seeing that.
And soon, they’d give their first public signal on which way they were going.
As part of the 30 visits—where prospects come to town, and routinely go through dinner the night before, meetings and a physical—the Titans have players meet with folks in every department. The idea is to give people around the organization input and see how a player might treat those who aren’t directly deciding whether to take him.
Borgonzi asked the department heads who’d meet with the players to take notes because, “sometimes,” he says, “you put them in front of a player engagement, or the dietician or strength coach and they might seem disinterested.” Ward’s visit was March 7—intentionally early so the Titans could get a better idea of where they were headed with the top pick, which would allow them to plan accordingly.
At the end of it, what the Titans brass got back from different folks around the building was consistent. “The respect level he had for everyone in the building stood out,” Borgonzi says.
And over the course of the day, Ward bumped into Calvin Ridley, who was there to work out.
After a brief conversation with Ward, Ridley went back to the brass with a simple, but impactful, message: “That’s the guy you want.”
Days later, purposefully, the Titans tipped their hand as free agency got going—eschewing veteran options at quarterback and instead investing in supporting the young quarterback by signing Dan Moore Jr. to play left tackle, which would allow them to move J.C. Latham back to his college position, and Kevin Zeitler to play guard.
So, clearly, by the time the Titans brass hit the road, it’d have been hard to move them off their spot—and, based on who they were figuring Ward was, it probably wasn’t happening anyway. And it didn’t.
That said, they weren’t done. Borgonzi still wanted to see Ward throw live. Callahan still wanted to get to work with him on the grass. Those chances were coming.
On March 24, Borgonzi, Ziegler, McKenzie, director of scouting A.J. Highsmith, offensive coordinator Nick Holz and quarterbacks coach Bo Hardegree made the trip to South Florida to see him throw. There, Miami coach Mario Cristobal told Borgonzi that Ward was the best leader he’d ever been around—which resonated, given Cristobal’s experience not only at Miami as a coach and player on national championship teams but also as a head coach at Oregon, and before that an assistant under Nick Saban at Alabama.
And everyone got to see Ward’s live arm.
But Callahan also saw a quirk to the quarterback’s mechanics. On his drops from under center, Ward would take a false step. Callahan whispered to those attending the workout that he wanted to see if he could fix that—with the chance to do it four days later when the Titans would return for their scheduled private workout with Ward.
Owner Amy Adams Strunk made the trip for that one since the owners’ meetings were a couple of days later at The Breakers in Palm Beach. The night before, on that Thursday night, the entire Tennessee group took Ward, his girlfriend and his family out for dinner, letting him choose the spot. They went to Carbone Vino in Coconut Grove, and the night went well, stretching over four hours.
It did because of how natural and easy it was for Ward to get along with everyone, every bit as natural as he’d look the next morning as the Titans worked him out.
Callahan incorporated the tweak in Ward’s footwork at the start of the session. By the time the group was done, the change had taken. Afterward, Callahan told the rest of the Titan brass that, with some guys, if they’ve been doing things one way forever, it can take a while for them to do things another way. Obviously, that wasn’t the case with Ward.
“The guy’s a natural athlete,” Callahan said to the group.
“He’s one of those natural athletes that can just do it; it’s not hard for him to change things,” Borgonzi says. “We came away thinking like, This guy’s a natural.”
It also gave context to the bigger picture with Ward.
One of the biggest questions for teams, including the Titans, diving into studying the quarterbacks was how a guy who was probably a Day 3 pick a year ago, who returned to college football after initially declaring for the 2024 draft, was suddenly worthy of the first pick. Had that much changed?
Yes—but not all at once. Ward gradually kept improving with his experience. So what the Titans saw on the field in Miami that Friday morning at the end of March was just a microcosm of a bigger story.
“You saw him get better every year, and that was the thing that I went back to,” Callahan says. “I watched this Miami season first. I went back and watched Washington State, and you see all the same things. You just don’t see them as much, and he had a little less talent around him. He had a little bit less line, so he had to do a little more. But he became more disciplined every year he played.
“His feet became better, his eyes became better, he became more consistently accurate. I think he grew personally as well. I think you saw his personality start to come out, and the leadership qualities that we saw in him started to show up more and more. It was a pure maturation process, both off the field and on it.”
From here, the Titans, of course, are gambling that it’ll continue that way.
In the end, there wasn’t a ton of variance in what the Titans were hearing, and they’d turned over just about every rock they could.
They even sent national scout Mike Boni to dig at Wake Forest’s pro day—knowing that ex-Washington State coach Jake Dickert and many of the assistants that Ward had been with in Pullman were there—and he returned with a lot of what guys such as Cristobal and Morris had told them.
So there was a day in the draft room, right after the owners’ meetings, at the beginning of April, when the time had to come to put what was already obvious into words. Brinker, Borgonzi, Callahan, Ziegler and McKenzie were there. And someone nonchalantly said, “Yeah, I mean, this is where we’re going.” Brinker, Borgonzi and Holz still made the trip to Boulder for Colorado’s April 4 pro day, where Sanders and Hunter worked out.
But while they were there, they met with Sanders’s camp and agreed to cancel a planned private workout set for the next week. Neither side wanted to waste the other’s time.
“I know there’s a lot of pressure that comes with that, with the No. 1 pick, and then just taking a quarterback. So the clock starts now for us.”Borgonzi
Twenty days later, and just three months into the job, Borgonzi made one of the most important phone calls he’ll make as Titans GM, calling Ward to give the quarterback the news he knew, but hadn’t yet been told, was coming. “We couldn’t think of anyone more deserving to be the No. 1 pick here and to represent the franchise,” Borgonzi said. “So we’re going to turn this pick in.”
And not lost on the GM was the gravity of the moment for everyone involved.
“It just speaks to the conviction I had on him, and that we all had,” Borgonzi says. “It’s so hard to find what you’d perceive to be a franchise quarterback and have an opportunity to get one. And he has the potential to be one. And I don’t know if we’ll ever be in this spot again to do it, or I’ll be in this spot again to do it. So, obviously, I had to feel really convicted on Cam, that he can be a franchise quarterback. And that’s really what it is.
“I know there’s a lot of pressure that comes with that, with the No. 1 pick, and then just taking a quarterback. So the clock starts now for us.”
Ward’s told, and shown, the Titans over the past three months that he won’t shrink to those sorts of stakes. And as his new team has learned, generally, Ward means what he says.
This article was originally published on www.si.com as How Cam Ward Erased Any Doubts Titans Would Draft Him No. 1.