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Tennessee Titans QB Cam Ward excited to play with WR Calvin Ridley
The Tennessee Titans were excited to grab University of Miami quarterback Cam Ward with the No. 1-overall pick in the 2025 NFL Draft. However, they will probably be even more ecstatic when they get to see what he can do with some actual weapons.
As of right now, Ward doesn’t have much to work with. Quick, name a wide receiver on the Titans not named Tyler Lockett or Calvin Ridley. Exactly. And Ridley is by far Ward’s biggest threat at wideout and he said as much recently on his YouTube channel.
“That boy there: different,” Ward said. “How he moves, everything. Now that I see what a receiver’s supposed to be like, that’s why I’m glad like Elic (Ayomanor), Chim (Dike), (Xavier Restrepo), Bryce (Oliver), all the guys in our room, I’m glad they’ve got him because I ain’t never threw to no receiver like him, that moves like him, can cut like him. And that boy he ain’t selfish either. Like he wants the rookies, all of us, he wants us to do better than him because he going to get his one-on-ones.”
All of the other receivers Ward mentioned are relatively young and inexperienced. Lockett has had a nice career, but he’s 32-years old and hasn’t had a 1,000-yard season in three years. So, Ridley is going to have to stay healthy for Ward and the offense to have a puncher’s chance.
Ridley will welcome competent QB play
Before last season, Ridley signed a four-year, $92 million contract with the Titans. That’s a lot for a guy coming off of a solid – but not spectacular – season with the Jacksonville Jaguars with 76 catches for 1,016 yards and eight touchdowns.
He rewarded the Titans (sort of) by catching 64 balls for 1,017 and four touchdowns. One could look at that and think the Titans aren’t getting what they paid for, but look at who was throwing him the football.
Will Levis was highly touted in the 2023 draft coming out of the University of Kentucky. He slipped to the second round that year and now we may know why. In 12 starts, Levis was about as brutal as brutal can be. He completed a somewhat respectable 63.1% of his passes for a paltry 2,091 yards, 13 touchdown passes and a robust 12 interceptions.
As you can probably guess, Mason Rudolph didn’t fair much better. He completed 64% of his throws for 1,530 yards, nine touchdowns and nine picks. How could the Pittsburgh Steelers get rid of this guy after just four seasons?
The fact that Ridley walked away from 2024 with a 1,000-yard season could be considered a minor miracle by some.
Ridley’s rough path through the NFL
Ridley was a highly touted wide receiver out of the University of Alabama and the Atlanta Falcons took him with the No. 26-overall selection in the 2018 NFL Draft. He’s always been productive, with his high-water mark coming in 2020 with the Dirty Birds with 90 catches for 1,374 yards and nine score.
But, Ridley is on his third team in the NFL for a reason and it’s not because he can’t play. His career was interrupted after the 2021 season when he violated the league’s gambling policy. No, he didn’t double down with 15 while the dealer was showing a king, he bet on NFL games and was suspended for all of 2022.
Ridley had been dealing with depression and other mental health issues and deposited $1,500 into a gambling app to make some wagers on games, including Falcons’ games.
“I just f—ed up. Period.” Ridley said. “In a dark moment, I made a stupid mistake. I wasn’t trying to cheat the game. That’s the thing I want to make clear. At the time, I had been away from the team for about a month. I was still just so depressed and angry, and the days were so long. I was just looking for anything to take my mind off of things and make the day go faster.”
That part is behind him now and all is forgiven. He posted two strong seasons after the suspension and is now in a great position to work with Ward and make the Titans relevant again. It would tough to see a scenario where he doesn’t get the lion’s share of attention in the offense.
It sounds like if Ward has his way that’s exactly what will happen.
Micah Warren Micah Warren has been covering the NFL – and sports in general – for more than 20 years and he began writing for Heavy in 2025. His work has been featured in Yahoo!, MSN.com, Forbes, Off the Record, GCobb.com, Blast Magazine and other sports and non-sports-related outlets. Micah also co-hosts “The Philly Pulse” podcast. More about Micah Warren
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