Will Cam Ward's arrival boost Calvin Ridley's fantasy value?

Yahoo

16-07-2025

Yahoo Sports fantasy analyst Matt Harmon and Rich Hribar of Sharp Football discuss how the Titans wide receiver could be impacted by the top overall pick taking over the starting quarterback job in Tennessee. Hear the full conversation on the 'Yahoo Fantasy Forecast' podcast - and subscribe on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube or wherever you listen.
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If Cam Ward can give us an impression of what Jayden Daniels did last year, not obviously to that degree, the Titans are not going to the AFC Championship or something like that, but if he can come in and be a good passer as a rookie, could Ridley have a 2024 Terry McLaurin type of season?
Yeah, you bring up the deployment stuff with him, and that's what we need to change more than the Cam Ward stuff, because it's easy to just look at Terry McLaurin last year, Justin Jefferson last year, and Neo Collins the year before that and say, hey, we know the upside potential with this.
The rookie quarterback is just getting, you know, not terrible quarterback play, and you know, that transition and what it can do for a player.
Um, but yeah, we need Brian Callahan to use Calvin Ridley in a different capacity than he did last year.
I mean, almost 16 air yards per target.
Like we talked about this with Marvin Harrison when you came on my show, it's like the free square stuff is is relevant in today's NFL and the way you're playing offense, and we'd love to see them get a little more creative with Calvin Ridley.
When you don't get the free squares, right?
Uh, what it does is it creates a huge, significant gap in terms of the way you're used based on how NFL teams are playing coverage, right?
And that's what happened to Calvin Ridley last year.
He was targeted on 32% of his routes against man coverage.
That was ninth among all wide receivers.
He's still winning one on one.
Like, when you look at 3 yards per route against man coverage, that was wide receiver five on the season.
He's still winning one on one, but then against zone coverage, 18.6% target rate per route drops to wide receiver 45.
He's not doing any of that free square stuff.
And that's what we need to see incorporated.
But I do like the potential of him, you know, at cost, you know, even if he's the same player that he was, I think Cam Ward facilitates that deep ball a lot better than Will Levis did.
But we do need Brian Callahan to kind of wake up.
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