The first pick in the draft usually gets the most attention on draft day.
Not this year.
Commissioner Roger Goodell had barely announced that Cam Ward was the first pick by the Tennessee Titans when the Jacksonville Jaguars stole the show by trading up to pick Travis Hunter with the second pick to play both wide receiver and defensive back.
But Ward is used to being overshadowed. Coming out of high school, the only team to offer him a scholarship was the University of Incarnate Word, a private Catholic school in San Antonio. He played in the Wing-T in high school and threw an average of only 12 passes a game in his senior year, so the bigger schools didn’t take a flyer on him.
Ward passed for 47 touchdowns and 4,648 yards in his second season, then transferred to Washington State where his Incarnate Word coach, Eric Morris, had been hired as the offensive coordinator.
After two years, Ward had graduated and announced for the NFL draft in 2024, but scouts didn’t rank him as a first rounder even though he passed for more than 3,000 yards both years at Washington State, so he decided to go to Miami for his final season of eligibility.
He jumped up the charts when he led Miami to a 10-2 record and was named the Davey O’Brien and Manning award winner as the top quarterback in college football and was fourth in Heisman Trophy balloting.
Although the Titans decided to make him the top pick and declined offers to trade the pick, he wasn’t hyped the way Trevor Lawrence was as the top pick, although Lawrence has yet to live up to that hype.
Now Ward gets another chance to show he has been underrated. He figured to be the Titans starter but once Will Levis was lost for the season, there was no doubt he would start.
Ward has a big challenge because the Titans were the NFL’s worst team last year .
In an interview with The Athletic, Ward admitted he has something to prove.
“I don’t think I am being welcomed with open arms,” he said. “I was the first pick. I am blessed to be that. But at the end of the day, there’s a target on my back. There’s a target on everyone’s back in the league, but I’m trying to prove myself to my teammates.”
He may not have a target on his back, but he will be in the spotlight.
And the Titans aren’t putting too much pressure on him. General manager Mike Borgoni said, “He is a rookie. Just like all these other guys, he is going to make mistakes and learn from it, but you want to see growth.”
If his past history is any indication, he will do more than show growth.
And he comes from an athletic family
His father, Calvin, played football and his mother, Patrice, coached high school basketball for nearly 25 years. His younger maternal cousin, Kyron Drones, is a quarterback at Virginia Tech and he has several older cousins who played in the NFL including Quentin Jammer and Quandre Diggs.
The next step for Ward is try to show that the Titans made the right move in making him the top pick.
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