Ian Hartitz presents the Tennessee Titans 2025 Team preview and Fantasy Football Outlook.

The Titans were supposed to be pretty bad last season … and they were! The defining memory of the team is probably Will Levis' generational run of creating hilarious memes.

Tennessee Titans in 2024:

  • Points per game: 18.3 (27th)
  • EPA per dropback: -0.06 (27th)
  • EPA per rush: -0.18 (29th)
  • Points per game against: 27.1 (30th)

Fast forward to 2025, and this squad's future is now tied directly to No. 1 overall pick Cameron Ward. Throw in a serious effort to fix PFF's reigning 28th-ranked offensive line, and it's fair to say the Titans are moving in the right direction one year removed from finishing with their fewest wins in a decade.

This brings us to today's goal: Answering key (mostly fantasy-related) questions about the Titans ahead of their 2025 season.

As always: It's a great day to be great.

Note: All referenced ADP (in parentheses) is Underdog, via our Fantasy Life ADP Tool. For our full fantasy football rankings as well as early Week 1 rankings, head to our rankings hub.

Tennessee Titans 2025 Fantasy Football And Team Preview

What are realistic Year 1 expectations for Cam Ward?

It's easy to fall in love with Ward's film. The man is cool, fearless, and maybe at times a bit too reckless—and it's a lot of fun to watch.

My pre-draft comps for Ward after checking out a handful of his games:

I know the DGAF Love comp seems weird since the Packer QB already seems to not give a f*ck during most of his dropbacks, but I stand by it. Fantasy Life draft expert Thor Nystrom seems to agree:

 

"Cam Ward’s got a high-voltage right arm, and there isn’t a throw in this world that he doesn’t think he can make. Ward’s game is a freewheeling, shoot-em-up display of aggression and creativity. He even talks like John Wick. “My mentality on the football field is (I) don’t give a (expletive),” Ward told The Athletic.

"When Ward gets cooking, watch out. Ward is a full-field reader, and he trusts what he sees implicitly. He has an elastic, twitchy arm, shooting the pill out from unorthodox sidearm slots. This is a useful trick under duress, but the extra arm action and non-repeatable upper-body mechanics do have slightly deleterious effects on his overall accuracy and placement. He modulates speeds well, and has feathery touch when he needs it."

The 23-year-old talent has the requisite arm talent and athletic ability to essentially force defenses to account for every blade of grass on the football—that's a helluva start to a profile, even if it's probably wishful thinking to expect too high of counting numbers in Year 1 based on the history of rookie QBs in the NFL. Consider: Just six QBs have produced top-12 numbers in fantasy points per game dating back to 2015: Jayden Daniels, Bo Nix, C.J. Stroud, Justin Herbert, Kyler Murray, and Dak Prescott. While Ward's efficient scrambling reflects the reality that he's hardly a statue in the pocket, the Washington State/Miami product rushed for only 336 yards in 13 games last season even when removing sacks from the equation. Not great!

Cam Ward 2025 Fantasy Football Outlook

The 2024 Titans were one of just eight offenses to allow 50+ sacks and wound up ranking a lowly 30th in Supporting Cast Rating. Maybe ex-Steelers LT Dan Moore and ex-Lions G Kevin Zeitler are enough to fix the former group, while Tyler Lockett and a few Day 3 WRs will improve the latter metric: Either way, it remains an awfully tough sell to paint this as anything other than a relatively bad offensive environment.

Accordingly, I struggle with having too much faith in Ward when it comes to his potential to put together big counting numbers as a rookie. He's my QB27 behind more proven veterans with some semblance of established rushing upside like Sam Darnold and Geno Smith. I've only really been drafting him in superflex formats or as a late third QB to stack with Calvin Ridley in best ball land. 

How locked in is Tony Pollard as this offense's featured back?

The common sentiment for Pollard in 2023 was that he lost his elite ability to pick up yards after contact because he was still recovering from injury. Well, his 2024 bounceback campaign certainly seemed to help add credence to that idea:

Pollard yards after contact per carry:

  • 2024: 3.4 (No. 6 among qualified RBs)
  • 2023: 2.9 (No. 16)
  • 2022: 3.8 (No. 1)
  • 2021: 3.6 (No. 5)
  • 2020: 3.6 (No. 5)
  • 2019: 4.5 (No. 1)

Pollard's third consecutive season with 1,000+ rushing yards was arguably his most impressive campaign yet considering it came behind what's been arguably the league's single-worst offensive line in creating yards before contact.

That said: Pollard ran pretty hot when it came to getting fed the football. His 301 touches were the ninth most in the NFL, as backup Tyjae Spears unfortunately had to deal with one injury after another virtually all season long.

Seriously: What did Spears ever do to the injury gods!

  • Sept. 15: Sprained ankle
  • Oct. 13: Pulled hamstring
  • Nov. 17: Concussion
  • Dec. 29: Concussion

All in all, Spears missed five games last season, failing to stay healthy enough to play the 1.B role that was expected of him. We did see the ceiling down the stretch at least: Spears worked as the overall PPR RB5 during fantasy playoffs in Weeks 15-17!

Unfortunately, even that latter stretch is tough to fully get behind due to Pollard dealing with his own laundry list of injuries throughout last season. Give the ex-Cowboy a lot of credit for gutting things out and only missing one game (due to the flu), but it wasn't uncommon to see Pollard miss entire weeks of practice with one lower-body injury or another before ultimately suiting up come game time.

This brings us to the key question ahead of 2025 after the Titans essentially declined to add any meaningful competition to the position: What will a backfield split look like here when both parties are healthy?

Well, the first four games of the season are probably our best bet, albeit even this sample isn't perfect due to Spears playing through the aforementioned ankle issue.

 

Bottom line: Pollard was handed a near every-down role for stretches of 2024 … and still  managed to finish "only" as the RB22 in PPR points per game. That's not bad, although it doesn't exactly feel like the masses are treating his performance the same way as D'Andre Swift (RB21) or Rachaad White (RB23). ADP and accordingly expectations are obviously a big part of this, but yeah: The counting numbers last season were nearly identical to what Pollard put up during his unanimously disappointing last season in Dallas.

Either way: Both Pollard (94% snaps in Week 12) and to a lesser extent Spears (65% in Week 17 before being ruled out with a concussion) are an injury to the other away from assuming a legit every-down workhorse role. This makes their respective RB3/RB4 price tags pretty enticing considering the FLEX-with-benefits upside to both. I've preferred Spears (RB41) to Pollard (RB27) due to the latter back going around guys with similar volume in better offenses like Isiah Pacheco and Brian Robinson, but both generally profile as the sort of zero-RB targets managers should be looking to target in the mid-to-late rounds.

Question 3: Does Calvin Ridley have 200 target upside??

Well, Fantasy Life Projections certainly believe Ridley has quite the leg up on the rest of his competition: His 115 targets are first on the team by a whopping 48 total pass-game opportunities.

And honestly: I've been pestering Fantasy Life Director of Analytics Dwain McFarland all offseason about upping Ridley's total. After all, Ridley went for 120 targets last season while sharing the field with guys like DeAndre Hopkins (for six games) and TD machine Nick Westbrook-Ikhine (now in Miami).

This is one of the more sad WR rooms in the league when looking at everyone past the franchise's $92 million man:

  • Tyler Lockett: 33 in September and has shown steep signs of decline despite obviously being awesome for so many years.
  • Van Jefferson: 29 in July, Jefferson hasn't reached 400 yards in a season since "booming" for a season-long 50-802-6 line with the Rams back in 2021.
  • Elic Ayomanor: The Travis Hunter slayer/fourth-rounder had some Day 2 hype before the draft, but wound up falling all the way to pick 136 overall. This historically doesn't go well.
  • Chimere Dike: Another fourth-rounder, Dike was a fifth-year "breakout" with a career-high 783 yards at Florida in 2024. He comes in as the WR15 of this class in Dwain McFarland's Rookie WR Super Model.
  • Xavier Restrepo: Undrafted undoubtedly in part because of a brutal injury-induced 4.83-second 40-yard dash. Ward's college buddy is far from a lock to make the final roster.
  • Treylon Burks: The former first-round pick also appears to be a cut candidate at this point in his career.

Calvin Ridley 2025 Fantasy Football Outlook

Reminder: Ridley led the league in total unrealized air yards last season by 179! There were PLENTY of occasions of Ridley creating all kinds of downfield separation, only for Will Levis or Mason Rudolph to not manage to get him the ball. The former Falcon and Jaguar also actually finished fourth in this category last season.

Let's get Ridley an accurate QB and see what happens. I maintain the 30-year-old veteran (younger in football years!) is good at the game and still capable of putting up some big-time numbers when paired with something close to a plus QB.

Calvin Ridley 2025 Fantasy Football Outlook

Ridley's current WR32 ADP bunches him alongside clear No. 2 options like Jaylen Waddle and Jordan Addison, among others. Obviously a superior overall passing game is capable of producing big counting numbers on less opportunities; just realize Ridley will look like a gem of a pick at this cost should Ward be anything close to, you know, good at football. He's one of my most-drafted WRs of the offseason and someone I especially love targeting when leaving the first four to five rounds with multiple RBs.

Otherwise: I'm pretty much out. Tyler Lockett is a fine enough LATE round dart due to his potential for 80-90 targets, but even then I prefer younger options like Darius Slayton and Dyami Brown in that range of drafts.

Should fantasy managers get Chiggy with it in 2025?

Horrible pun aside: Things were looking good for Chig after his rookie season. Sure, the 32-450-3 receiving line wasn't anything to write home about, but he was behind veterans Austin Hooper and Geoff Swaim, and man, the dude was literally a top-two pass-catcher at the position based on all the cool advanced stats … with a minimum of 46 targets.

Both Hooper and Swaim were gone in 2023 ... and Okonkwo turned in a rough TE27 finish in PPR points per game. This was followed by an even worse TE29 finish on last year's squad. It's 2025. Maybe we shouldn't be considering this again.

Or maybe we should. Kinda. The Fantasy Life crew has Chiggy ranked as the TE28 for a reason, but his role actually increased in a somewhat meaningful way following the DeAndre Hopkins trade. 

  • Weeks 1-7 (before): 58% routes, 14% targets per route run, 10% target share, 5.3 PPR points per game (TE28)
  • Weeks 8-17 (after): 69% routes, 19% targets per route run, 17% target share, 8.2 PPR points per game (TE21)

The latter improvement isn't exactly world-class performance, but hey, it's something! Then again, the team has had the entire offseason to reassess the position, ultimately adding pass-catching-friendly Texas TE Gunnar Helm in Round 4 pick 120—ahead of where Okonwko previously went with a completely different group of people in charge of all facets of the organization.

Bottom line: Oknokwo's YAC ability remains a fun watch, but it takes quite a bit of maneuvering to paint a picture where he finishes as more than the borderline TE2 he's done in each of the past two seasons. There still isn't a ton of target competition overall, although it seems feasible Helm again does profile as the sort of late-round threat very capable of stealing targets.

If you want to tack Chig on the end of a best ball squad with Ward on a TE-needy squad? Be my guest, but in redraft leagues? No thank you.

Was Will Levis the most entertaining QB in the league last season?

Our formula: PFF's big-time throw rate and turnover-worthy play rate. We're looking for someone who provides some high highs, and some low lows. This is our way of honoring the Jameis Winstons of the world.

 

 

The actual answer: Anthony Richardson! Honestly, adds up.

That said: The only QBs to finish in the top 12 for big-time throw rate and bottom 12 for turnover-worthy play rate among these 47 qualified QBs: Richardson … and Will Levis. Are you not entertained?!

Prediction for the 2025 Titans Season

The Titans join the Browns, Saints, Jets, and Giants as the only lowlifes with a win total of just 5.5. Ultimately, I'm not buying the immediate bounceback despite the potential for Ward to provide some fun during Year 1. This is still a rough-looking roster—give me the under.

That said: My bold fantasy prediction is that most of Ward's success will come via Calvin Ridley, who will produce his best season since 2020 and supply top-20 PPR goodness in fantasy land.