NASHVILLE — Seattle Seahawks coach Mike Macdonald watched his defense work Friday against a Tennessee Titans offense quarterbacked by Cam Ward.
Macdonald got to see Ward up close as a rookie last November, when the Seahawks beat the Titans 30-24 in Nashville during a regular season Seattle followed with a run to the franchise’s second Super Bowl championship. Another up-close view of the No. 1 pick of the 2025 NFL draft hasn’t changed Macdonald’s opinion.
“I can speak to how well he played today,” the Seattle coach said after a joint practice hosted by the Titans. “He’s in command of the offense. He did a great job. We all saw the game last year. I thought he was a pain in the neck last year, too. So it seems like he’s going to have a really good season.”
How Ward responded after struggling in Tennessee’s exhibition win against the San Francisco 49ers last week in a preseason opener was a big focus while practicing with the Seahawks, whose defense was the NFL’s stingiest in points allowed in 2025. Ward was 20-of-26 passing with two touchdowns and one interception in team and 7-on-7 drills.
“On the offensive side, I’m looking forward to seeing the tape to see if it was a continuation, because I felt like we really owned the line of scrimmage last week, and it’ll be cool if we were able to do it against these guys,” said Titans first-year head coach Robert Saleh, who also spent his time with his defense.
On the other field, Seattle quarterback Sam Darnold got to see what Saleh is doing, and yes, Tennessee’s defense pressuring quarterbacks looks a lot like what he saw last season, when Saleh was the defensive coordinator for San Francisco, one of Seattle’s rivals in the NFC West Division.
“They’re showing a lot of different things defensively without getting too far into the weeds, but they’re doing a lot great things,” Darnold said. “And that defense is going to be really good this year.”
The Titans will host the Seahawks in a preseason matchup Sunday night at Nissan Stadium.
Friday’s joint practice featured only a little scuffling and pushing after two Titans were tossed from their session last week against the 49ers in California.
Going against Seattle offered the Titans a chance to test just where they are right now. Saleh filled his coaching staff with plenty of experience with Brian Daboll as offensive coordinator and Gus Bradley as his defensive coordinator. The Titans also were the NFL’s biggest spenders in free agency.
All-Pro defensive tackle Jeffery Simmons said the Titans came in with the right mindset this week while practicing against a good team.
“Our mindset was, ‘They may be hungry; we’re starving,'” Simmons said. “Let’s go out here and continue to start to get to where we really want to get to because that’s our goal: Super Bowl.”
Macdonald said some of Seattle’s players cramped up, including receiver Montorie Foster Jr. after a leaping catch late in practice. Temperatures felt close to 100 degrees with humidity factored in, especially by the time practice ended.
“It’s an awesome opportunity to have a pretty heavy practice in this heat and humidity,” Macdonald said. “I think they said it’s a little bit cooler than it’s been here, which is kind of crazy.”
Darnold said the quarterbacks met up during a special teams period, and the weather came up before he could talk about just how hot it felt.
“They’re like, ‘Oh, it’s a beautiful day! You brought the cool weather with you.’ It’s like, ‘Good God,'” Darnold said. “It was honestly really good for us to be able to come out here and have different weather, have a different defense out here.”
Each team returned an interception for a defense against the opposition’s starting quarterback. Titans cornerback Alontae Taylor jumped a pass from Darnold and ran it into the end zone. Seattle safety Ty Okada picked off Ward on a separate field.