Saleh confirms Carmona at guard, says Ward 'is not going to fail'
Robert Saleh has settled his offensive line and put his name on his quarterback, calling Cam Ward "special" days before the Titans open the season against the team that fired him.
Carmona is the Week 1 starter, and Saleh is all in on Ward
Tennessee closed the preseason 2-1 in the preseason so far, with the finale a 24-15 loss to the Bears at Nissan Stadium on August 29 that Saleh had already signaled would be about jobs, not the scoreboard. Nicholas Singleton, a rookie sixth on the depth chart entering camp, carried 7 times for 26 yards and caught both his targets for 18 in that game; Chimere Dike added a 9-yard catch on his lone target. Cam Ward didn't play a snap in any of the three preseason games.
Bears15-24
Seahawks19-16
49ers19-13The guard battle that ran the whole camp is over: Robert Saleh has named fifth-round rookie Fernando Carmona Jr. the starter at right guard for the opener against the Jets, beating out veterans Cordell Volson and Jackson Slater. "He put his foot in the door, and he's doing everything he can to throw his shoulder through," Saleh said of him, per the Washington Times, and PFF's team preview has Carmona allowing just 1 pressure on 40 pass-blocking snaps this summer.
Ward's own preparation has been quieter but just as pointed — new offensive coordinator Brian Daboll has spent camp sharpening his decision-making, Turron Davenport of ESPN.com reports — and Saleh has stopped hedging on the payoff. "This kid's not going to fail. Obviously, I put my job on that one, but he's not going to fail. He's special," Saleh said this week. It's about as direct as a coach gets ten days before his quarterback's first real snap of the season.
Saleh goes back to the team that fired him, with Levis in the building too
Will Levis cleared waivers completely unclaimed last week, even with the Jets sitting at No. 2 priority and an open look at a quarterback room behind Justin Fields' old seat. They passed — and then, ten days before Tennessee opens at home against them, Levis turned up in New York's building anyway. Adam Schefter reported Wednesday that the former Titans QB tried out for the Jets, a strange little coda to the team that let him walk.
It's not the only old-team subplot in this game. Saleh himself was fired by the Jets early in the 2024 season, and Sunday is his first trip back across from them since. He isn't playing it up — "New York is still a special place, gave me my first opportunity as a head coach," Saleh said, adding that wanting to win Week 1 is "just Week 1," not a grudge, per NBC Sports. The Jets, for their part, are reportedly bringing the right mentality into a game with real stakes for a coach who used to be theirs.
A rebuilding Jets team walks into a Titans team that just found its guard
Sunday afternoon vs. the Jets closes the preseason chapter and opens the real one, and New York arrives 1-2 this preseason with its last tune-up a 6-23 loss to the Giants. The Jets are coming off a 3-14 season and are still sorting out their own quarterback picture, with Geno Smith projected as the Week 1 starter over a crowded backup room — a rebuild in progress more than a finished product, by their own beat writers' read.
Tennessee opened as favored at home, with the line set at -2.5 and the total at 38.5 — a number that reads low-scoring on paper for two offenses still figuring out who they are. NFL Network's own analysts picked the Jets to pull the upset regardless, which is the kind of pick that will get repeated in Nashville all week whether Saleh dignifies it or not.
Ward gets his first regular-season snap in this building, against the franchise that used to employ his head coach, with a rebuilt right guard spot next to him. It is as clean a script for an opener as this roster could have asked for.