Calvin Ridley — Week 1: Active, Thirty-Two Throws, None His
2026 NFL Season · Half-PPR Scoring · Monday, Sep 14
Ridley was not on the Titans' inactive list Sunday and was not targeted. Cam Ward threw thirty-two times: six each to Carnell Tate and Wan'Dale Robinson, five to Gunnar Helm, four to Tyjae Spears, three to Elic Ayomanor, two to Tony Pollard, one each to Daniel Bellinger and Chimere Dike, and four with no intended receiver. Robert Saleh said afterward that Ward missed some throws, and the reporting described one of them as passing up Ridley, per Lane Mills at Titans On SI.
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Calvin Ridley's name does not appear in the play-by-play of Sunday's game. He was not among the seven Titans listed inactive on the team's official game-day report at TennesseeTitans.com — Nicholas Singleton, Cedric Gray, Jaylon Jones, Atonio Mafi, Jackie Marshall, Brandon Crenshaw-Dickson and Owen Pappoe — and he was not thrown to, not handed the ball, and not mentioned on a penalty, a return or an injury note. Tennessee threw 32 passes and lost 23 to 10.
The reporting adds one detail the data cannot. Robert Saleh said after the game that Cam Ward missed a couple and has to make those throws, and Lane Mills at Titans On SI described one of the misses as Ward passing up an open Ridley to throw the ball out of bounds. The play-by-play lists four Ward incompletions with no intended receiver, and this show cannot say which one that was, or whether it was one of them.
What the passing game did is the football here. 32 throws, 19 completions, a hundred 40 yards, one touchdown. Carnell Tate and Wan'Dale Robinson were thrown to six times each — Tate's six carried 67 air yards and two deep incompletions, Robinson's 23 air yards and five catches. Gunnar Helm had five targets, Tyjae Spears four, Elic Ayomanor three including the 11-yard touchdown on third and 10 with two 45 left, Tony Pollard two, Daniel Bellinger and Chimere Dike one each. Robinson's six were worth +3.0 expected points added — expected points added is what a play was worth given down, distance and field position — and no other Titan's targets came out above +1.3. 10 of the 35 Titans pass plays came before halftime, 25 after it, and every completion was marked short.
Back in June the preview's read on Ridley was little opportunity — 38.8 points across seven games, five and a half a game, 68 percent availability. Sunday was the least opportunity there is, on a day the team threw 35 times. One game with no targets is not a role, and the reporting suggests he was on the field for at least some of it; what it is, is the first line in a season that needs a different second one. Tennessee is home to the Eagles on Sunday the twentieth.
_Data via nflverse._
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