Titans rest Cam Ward, fall 24-15 to Bears in preseason finale
Robert Saleh kept Cam Ward and the rest of his starters in street clothes for the preseason finale, handing the night to Will Levis, Hendon Hooker and a roster bubble that gets trimmed to 53 by Sunday's deadline.
Saleh sits Cam Ward, lets the bubble guys settle it in the finale
Tennessee closed the preseason 2-1 with a 24-15 loss to the Bears at Nissan Stadium on Saturday, and the box score wasn't really about the Titans' actual team. Will Levis started and went 14 of 22 for 143 yards, directing three drives that stalled into Joey Slye field goals — Slye made all three of his attempts, from 28, 56 and 25 yards out. Hendon Hooker closed the game 5 of 8 for 37 yards and steered a late touchdown drive.
Bears15-24
Seahawks19-16
49ers19-13That lineup wasn't an accident. Beat writer Terry McCarthy reported before kickoff that most Titans starters wouldn't play, with the reps instead going toward players still fighting for roster spots. Robert Saleh confirmed as much afterward, telling reporters via the team's own recap, "I was good with where we were at. I think we overshot our projected reps for the entire camp by 50 or 60 reps," and waving off any concern about rust heading into the opener: "It doesn't matter — we've got to go. But look, we're going to evolve as the year goes on."
Most Titans starters won’t play tonight vs.Bears. Reps will be used to monitor guys in battles for roster spots
The names worth remembering are the ones making a last case before Sunday's 5 p.m. cutdown deadline. Rookie Nicholas Singleton — sixth on the running back depth chart entering camp — carried seven times for 26 yards and caught both his targets for 18, while Chimere Dike, TD's kick-return man, added a nine-yard catch. Cam Ward, meanwhile, didn't take a snap and heads into the opener rested, not rusty.
Robinson avoided the worst of it, but he's still Questionable
The scarier moment of Titans camp came Thursday, not Saturday. Bears safety Xavier Woods — a former Titan — hit Wan'Dale Robinson helmet-to-helmet well after a throw at joint practice, an exchange Robert Saleh called flatly "cheap" and one that emptied both benches, with lineman Austin Schlottmann squaring up with Woods and receivers Calvin Ridley and Elic Ayomanor jumping in against Chicago's secondary.
#Titans WR Wan'Dale Robinson, who was checked for a concussion yesterday after joint practice, is not believed to have suffered one, source says. The team will continue to monitor him to make sure concussions symptoms don’t arise. But positive early indications.
The medical read, at least, went the Titans' way. Ian Rapoport of NFL Network reported Robinson isn't believed to have suffered a concussion, though the team kept monitoring him for symptoms through the weekend, as Wan'Dale Robinson Not Believed To Have Concussion After Cheap Hit detailed. He's still listed Questionable entering cutdown weekend.
Cam Ward isn't waiting on a symptom checklist to own his part in it. "I have to put him in a better situation," Ward said, per ClutchPoints. "So that's really more about me than it is about him. But he's tough. He got up and he's good. I have to make sure I don't put him in that kind of position again." That's the kind of sentence that outlasts a joint-practice scuffle.
Tate is still looking for his first preseason catch, and nobody in Nashville is worried
Carnell Tate's exhibition stat line got no less strange on Saturday: the No. 4 pick failed to bring in his only target against the Bears, stretching an 0-for-6 run through three preseason games. Titans Not Blinking on Carnell Tate After Quiet Camp laid out why the building isn't sweating it, and the finale did nothing to change that math.
The gap between the box score and the practice tape is still the whole story. Against these same Bears in joint sessions Thursday, Ward targeted Tate a dozen times and connected on seven, including two touchdowns, per AtoZ Sports' coverage of the workouts — and the Titans' own account backed that read up Friday with a "Music City BTS" clip built entirely around him. A team doesn't spend a highlight reel on a receiver it's worried about.
Geno Smith and the Jets open the real thing at Nissan Stadium
Preseason business is done; the Titans open the regular season Sunday afternoon vs. the Jets, at home, with Tennessee installed as the favorite. The line opened at -2.5 and the total was set at 38.5 — the first real number of the year for a Titans team that spent its last tune-up watching from the sideline.
New York arrives having gone 1-2 in its own exhibition slate, including a 6-23 loss to the Giants in its last look, and the Jets' depth chart still runs through Geno Smith at quarterback. It's the first game that counts for both rosters, and for Tennessee, it's the first look at whether resting Cam Ward on Saturday pays off two weeks from now.