Tennessee's first-team offense produced an impressive opening drive, but Robert Saleh saw a quarterback whose mechanics and progressions moved faster than they needed to.
By PAUL KUHARSKY
The Titans only needed two pass completions from Cam Ward in their first series in order to cover 95 yards and find a touchdown.
That was the first-team highlight, a strong run-heavy drive that moved the ball through a variety of weapons: Tony Pollard ran for 12, Calvin Ridley took a pass for 18, Gunnar Helm ran 16 with a sidearm screen and Tyjae Spears gave them a great 25-yard run, bouncing out of the middle and finding room to the right. Pollard finished it with a short TD.
They weren’t facing 49ers starters and things were shaky from there in a 19-13 win at Levi’s Stadium Thursday night in the preseason opener.
Ward finished five-of-12 for 57 yards with a 52.4 passer rating. His touch, accuracy and anticipation were mostly off as he hit at a 42 percent rate. On a few misses, his receivers may have been at fault.
He typically puts the ball on receivers fast, something Elic Ayomanor pointed out early last year. But two hot ones to Wan’Dale Robinson last night didn’t need to be the bullets the free-agent newcomer didn’t handle.
The QB held the ball while backpedaling too long and earned an intentional grounding call. He flung the ball as a defender sent him to the ground in a dangerous play that created a second-and-26 from the Titans' 3.
Much more was on Ward and his targets than was attributable to good defense, like Ephesians Prysock’s nice knockdown of a throw for Carnell Tate at the right front pylon just before Pollard’s TD.
Overall, Ward hardly showed the sharpness he had in his last couple of practices in Nashville before the Titans went West.
"I felt like his decisions were right; it just felt like he was a little sped up more than he has been in camp,” Robert Saleh told reporters on site.It’s the first time with live bullets. I’m not sure, but it looked like his mechanics were a little more sped up than it has been. Which is good because we can go correct it, which is what the preseason is for.
The defense: The 49ers started third-string quarterback Kurtis Rourke, who only missed two of 14 passes en route to 104 yards and a 106.7 passer rating. He wasn’t sacked by the ballyhooed front and Cody Barton completely whiffed on an easy takedown chance on a fourth-and-4, allowing Rourke to scramble for a conversion. A hold against Alontae Taylor would have taken care of it too.
Cor’Dale Flott was close on some plays, but rookie De’Zhaun Stribling caught most of his seven passes for 63 yards on him. Stribling has had a big camp and huge hype in the Bay Area. Flott wasn't alone struggling in the secondary, just most noticeable.
Carmona: While veteran Cordell Volson has been at the front of the line most of the time in practices, the Titans went with fifth-rounder Fernando Carmona as the starting right guard at the team’s most competitive spot. Jackson Slater was supposed to be the primary competition as camp opened, but he looks to have fallen off.
The starting line played pretty well, but again, it faced second-stringers.
Mike Borgonzi spoke highly of Carmona on Tuesday.
“He had the makeup,” he said of what prompted the pick. We went through and tried to identify guys that had these characteristics in our scouting report: competitiveness, toughness, and smart -- like the mental aspect that we grade on a one-to-nine scale. We were trying to identify any guys that had an eight or above, or seven or above, in those qualities, and we put an alpha tag on them.
“He was one of them. There were like seven or eight offensive linemen in the draft that we had them on. The makeup is good with them, so I'm not surprised. He plays gritty, and there are certain things he has to clean up right now. But he's got size and he's a good athlete too.”
To start off, the second-team line was, left to right, Austin Deculus, Slater, Pat Coogan, Carmona and Brendan Crenshaw-Dickson. Volson eventually replaced Carmona.
Joey Slye: The kicker missed two field goal attempts in the team’s scrimmage last week and the Titans tried out several kickers since.
He went six for six in the joint practice, though nothing was longer than 44 yards.
In the game, he was big.
He hit a 39-yarder in the second quarter, put one straight down the middle from 55 on the final play of the first half to boost the lead to 13-7, made it 16-10 in the third with a 53-yarder and hit from 58 with 2:23 left in the game to make it 19-10.
The Titans have to be feeling much better about him.
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