I’m going to be honest…if you were to strictly box-score scout Cam Ward’s accuracy statistics from last season, you would not be impressed. While that alone might raise concerns for fans and media, the stats don’t tell the full story of why Cam hasn’t been as accurate as he was in college. Even though a 59.8% completion rate is attached to Ward’s rookie season, this does not mean that he is doomed to repeat this kind of performance in the 2026-27 season.
After ranking 31st in target percentage and having a league-low 5.9 YPA (Yards per Attempt), Cam Ward might as well just hang up his cleats and call it a career! I’m obviously kidding, but this is legitimately how some Titans fans think. I, on the other hand, try to keep a generally optimistic outlook on the teams I follow even though that can be incredibly difficult to do sometimes, especially since I am also a Vanderbilt fan. After these pessimistic fans I mentioned bring up Cam’s accuracy issues, they completely forget to mention the 24 dropped passes that occurred last season as well. These fans also forget to bring up that Cam was sacked a whopping 55 times last year. While I acknowledge that some of these sacks were definitely Cam’s fault, he was playing behind one of the worst pass-blocking OL units in the league last year. While I understand that completion percentage is an individual quarterback stat, I would also argue that the quarterback’s completion percentage can be classified as an offensive unit statistic as well. On top of this poor offensive play, Ward also had a hard time finding stability within the offense itself. After week 6, Brian Callahan, Cam’s play-caller, got abruptly replaced, not even halfway into his first NFL season. Even though Cam did show some improvement under Bo Hardegree’s playcalling leadership, it is still hard for any quarterback to have two different play-callers in a season.
Before I go any further, I need to address the elephant in the room. At the time of writing this article, Cam has only completed his first preseason game of the 2026 season. In this game, Cam went 5-of-12 passing with only 57 passing yards. While these stats alone are horrendous, Robert Saleh gave some explanations for why Cam’s performance left a lot to be desired. Saleh claimed that Cam’s mechanics were simply “sped up” and Saleh also mentioned that all the plays called in the game, Cam was able to execute perfectly in practice. Another aspect of this performance to consider is that this was Cam’s first performance in a stadium where he can actually get hit in quite some time. Hopefully, this sped-up mentality that Cam showed can be easily fixed after a film session with the offensive coaching staff.
Luckily, the plan around Cam is specifically designed to fix his sped-up mentality. One of the main strengths of Brian Daboll in my opinion is his ability to scheme pass catchers open. Along with this, Daboll has talked a lot about focusing on the lower-body mechanics of the quarterbacks that he has worked with. Cam has even mentioned in a press conference, during this year’s training camp, that he has been working on getting back in the pocket more slowly from under center so his pass catchers can have more time to get into their breaks. On top of this, Mike Borgonzi was able to get Cam some real pass-catching help by drafting Carnell Tate and signing the likes of Wan’Dale Robinson in free agency. Personally, I wish the front office focused more resources on fixing certain positions on the offensive line, but it is getting too late to make significant OL changes this far into the offseason. If Cam Ward wants to make a second-year jump that a lot of analysts are predicting, he is going to have to lean into the new coaching and pass-catching assets that the team has invested in him so far.
Obviously, as a Titans fan, I would love to see Cam Ward succeed this year. Unfortunately, as a fan of the game of football, I realize that sometimes high-end players just simply don’t pan out in the NFL. If Ward’s accuracy and overall decision-making issues are not looking better by mid to late October, it might be time for Titans fans to have some pretty difficult conversations about Ward’s future with the team. I don’t want to give up on Cam by any means, I just want the Titans to win as many games as they possibly can. If the coaching staff and the front office believe that Cam can win games with the Titans, even after early accuracy struggles, I am going to have to trust their analysis. I just hope that Cam begins to show some real tangible improvement in his play since this entire offseason for the Titans has been specifically designed to help him.
All in all, Cam needs to be better this year from an accuracy standpoint in my opinion. If he somehow has a regression in his play all the way into the midpoint of this season, the front office and Titans fans are going to have to seriously consider what the future of the quarterback position is going to look like for this team.
Hello, and welcome in to the latest edition of Yankee Candle Reviews here on SoBros Network. I will be your host – the Fragrance Aficionado of SoBros Network, also the EIC, Stoney Keeley. My passion for Yankee Candle began in 2006, when I strolled into the location in Providence Marketplace in Mount Juliet, Tennessee. I picked up a jar of Autumn Woods, and found it captured the essence of the season perfectly. I’ve been hooked in this…well, you could even call it ‘romantic…’ relationship with Yankee Candle ever since. Today, we’re going to beat the heat by staying indoors with some Afternoon Scrapbooking.
How can you not romanticize Yankee Candle when they make such romantic fragrances as Afternoon Scrapbooking? How do they even come up with these scents? Mad scientists, I tell ya! Afternoon Scrapbooking is a smooth and mellow scent. I’m not sure if it was meant to be a fall fragrance, but it kind of comes across as one to me. It’s perfect for a late August burn when you’re just about at the edge of the summer and gearing up for fall. For me, I get notes of sweet woods and tobacco. If I could stuff my pipe with this, it would be heavenly.
Recommended Burning: Oops! You spilled a tiny bit of glue on your shirt. The sexual tension at the scrapbooking party has been palpable, and you see this as your moment. You take your shirt off and expose your bare chest. The other guests at the scrapbooking party are taken aback, but you can tell that enough wine has been flowing that if you lead, they’ll eventually follow. “I’m so clumsy,” you say. Hearts are racing, and before you know it, someone else takes their shirt off. Then someone else. Before you know it, you’re in the midst of a full-on scrapbook orgy. That is when you should light Afternoon Scrapbooking.
Check out the Yankee Candle archives here on SoBros Network for my extensive backlog of Yankee Candle reviews! Also, be sure to check out my comprehensive list of the top 100 Yankee Candle fragrances of all time. I worked on that thing for forever, so any read is appreciated, thank you. That is all.
Stoney Keeley is the Editor in Chief of The SoBros Network, second on Football & Other F Words, analyst for Stacking The Inbox, and a Dogs Playing Poker on velvet connoisseur. He is a strong supporter of Team GSD, #BeBetter, and ‘Minds right, asses tight.’ “Big Natural” covers the Tennessee Titans, the NFL Draft, Nashville, Yankee Candle, and a whole wealth of nonsense. Follow on Twitter @StoneyKeeley.
Elsewhere on the SoBros Network: Check out Stacking The Inbox for premium coverage of the Tennessee Titans and NFL Draft. Subscribe to Nashville Movie Dispatch for all of our movie content. We get weird on Phone It In, the history podcast that explores legendary tales, important historical figures, and events.
I look back at my copy of Midnight In Paris as it sits on my television stand. It’s a film I watch at the start of every summer because its beauty encapsulates the spirit of the season and its story perfectly sums up the magic of summer’s endless possibilities when you’re still at the onset of it. I like the head space it puts me in. I can watch it on an evening when golden hour cascades my living room with soft orange light that turns purple and pink as the clock ticks away. It’s a harmonious experience that puts me in tune with summer much like reading a page or two from Ray Bradbury’s Dandelion Wine. Now, I’m at my desk, prepping notes for the first Titans preseason game, and it feels like it was forever ago that I watched it. It serves as a reminder of how fast time passes the older I get. It felt like only yesterday that I was looking forward to our summer plans. Now, I’m wondering where the time has gone.
It’s fitting to be sitting down at my laptop to write this on August 1st. Of course, that’s because it’s the official unofficial start to a season I’ve completely made up in my head: late summer. I decided a while ago that it needed its own label. It’s far too hot (at least here in Middle Tennessee) to be considered Fall. But, it’s not quite summer either. It’s a trend I’ve picked up on the older I’ve gotten. For me personally, it feels like the summer’s over after the 4th of July. June is always such a busy month for us that we rarely plan anything deep into July. Usually, we need a reprieve of sorts. I started noticing on social media that a lot of my friends and family plan their vacations for June, too. It’s almost as if the promise of a new summer is so great that we collectively can’t wait to hit the road. Early summer is a time of great anticipation. Once it’s over, what’s left? The heat.
The heat isn’t so bad early on in the season. Or, perhaps it’s just that we’ve grown tired of the cold winter months and the Jekyll & Hyde spring season that typically throws temperatures back and forth between hot and cold enough that it makes everyone sick. Maybe we’re a little lenient on the heat. Here, May and early June aren’t so bad. It warms up early, but at least then, there’s still some semblance of a night breeze that cools things down. By July? Not so much – that’s when the humidity begins to set in. Just last week, I stepped outside at 10PM and it was still as if I was breathing in steam. I say all of this to highlight why, in my opinion, things seem to slow down at this time of year – it’s a bit of both calendars slowing down and unyielding heat and humidity setting in.
Things are quiet right now. I can head to just about any restaurant around and I won’t have to wait for a table. School isn’t quite back in session yet, so the traffic is lighter. I don’t know how scientific the methodology is, but that’s what I use as evidence to support my claim that this is a black hole on the calendar. It’s a season of its own….late summer.
And, I quite enjoy it. Dare I say, it may be my favorite time on the calendar…certainly the most underrated. I tend to run hot. I work a lot and I have for the better part of the last 13 years. For me, I need a quiet spell roughly every six months or so when nothing is going on and I can hear myself think. I usually take some time off during the holidays that satisfies this need. But, it’s hard to find during the summer time. Thankfully, late summer provides that bit of peace for me. I like to take a weekend to myself in early August to review my accomplishments for the year and to review my list of things left to do before the year’s up. I take a weekend to just relax, to purposefully clear my head, and reset for football season (I am a football writer, after all).
But, there’s more to late summer than it serving as a convenient checkpoint on my calendar. I also love the way nature behaves this time of year. There’s something about a sweaty hue over the moon at night that just looks mesmerizing…like something from a fantasy tale. The haze in the sky during the day makes it so that we don’t forget where we are on the calendar either. Leaves begin to turn a more shallow shade of green, sometimes, even yellow or downright brown. When I was a kid, I used to get my hopes up, thinking it was the arrival of an early fall. Now, I realize that it’s just the vegetation dying in the dryer weather and heat. It amounts to an encouraging message – “it can’t get much worse than this.” There’s nowhere to go but up! It also doesn’t hurt that I don’t have to mow my lawn as much this time of year either. Everything is beginning to die, and it may sound paradoxical, but that’s a pretty hopeful thing. It’s going to cool off before we know it.
It’s similar to why I love Thanksgiving. No, it’s not traditionally the most revered holiday, but at least with Thanksgiving, you get the enjoyment of the holiday atmosphere with the hope and anticipation of Christmas and New Year’s around the corner. Once New Year’s rolls around, what do we have? Spring time? Apply this theory to the pro wrestling world. The reason I love the Royal Rumble (January) so much is that it feels big, but we still have WrestleMania (March/April) to look forward to! Once WrestleMania is over, the calendar resets and everything starts anew! The storylines are mostly over! The reason I love late summer is that the promise of fall and the change in seasons still looms – we don’t have to reconcile with the inevitable passing of time just yet.
This is all to say that I hope you can take some quiet time to yourself before the social calendar loads back up for the Fall. It’s a nice practice. For one, it’s just a weird feeling at this time of year and I like things that feel weird. It’s that simple. We talk a lot about the standard issue seasonal weather – cold in winter, hot in summer. But, there are pockets on the calendar where they meld together and that’s where the sweet spot is. I like to sit in those moments – the evenings that creep back down into the low 80s after a brutal run of 100+ degree days. There is nothing like the relief of a cool breeze after record-setting heat. I swear there’s something restorative about it. There’s no better indicator of this than the Wilson County Fair – I can remember years when I had to change clothes after leaving and I can remember years when I needed a hoodie to walk through it. It marks a transition period. Take stock of what you can and begin planning for the future.
I hope you can enjoy late summer too.
Stoney Keeley is the Editor in Chief of The SoBros Network, second on Football & Other F Words, analyst for Stacking The Inbox, and a Dogs Playing Poker on velvet connoisseur. He is a strong supporter of Team GSD, #BeBetter, and ‘Minds right, asses tight.’ “Big Natural” covers the Tennessee Titans, the NFL Draft, Nashville, Yankee Candle, and a whole wealth of nonsense. Follow on Twitter @StoneyKeeley.
Elsewhere on the SoBros Network: Check out Stacking The Inbox for premium coverage of the Tennessee Titans and NFL Draft. Subscribe to Nashville Movie Dispatch for all of our movie content. We get weird on Phone It In, the history podcast that explores legendary tales, important historical figures, and events.
It’s no secret that the success of the 2026-27 Tennessee Titans is going to rely heavily on the team’s offensive line play. From the run game to Cam Ward’s development as an NFL quarterback, the O-Line is arguably the single most important job on the entire team. In an attempt to improve the O-Line, the Titans brought in Carmen Bricillo, a 7-year NFL coaching veteran, to help whip this offensive line unit into shape. After looking through Bricillo’s previous stops in the NFL, I was able to notice a clear pattern that comes with an important caveat for the Tennessee Titans. Throughout this article, I will explore how highly-rated Bricillo’s previous offensive lines have been and how that relates to the Titans.
Stop 1: New England Patriots (2020 co-OL coach, 2021 sole OL coach) – As a co-OL coach, Bricillo helped orchestrate an offensive line that ranked 4th in the NFL per PFF’s year-end rankings. Since this was Bricillo’s first year with real responsibility as an OL coach, I decided to start my analysis of his career here. A highlight of this particular offensive line’s success was shown through sixth rounder Micheal Onwenu, who graded out at 84.3 PFF overall which was top-10 at the time among all rookie linemen. In 2021, Bricillo’s first time being the sole offensive line coach, the unit slightly worsened as they placed 9th in the PFF year-end rankings. While this is technically a worse finish than the previous year, a 9th-ranked NFL offensive unit is definitely something to be proud of. Just imagine what this year’s Titans team could accomplish if they had a 9th-ranked OL in the league!
Stop 2: Las Vegas Raiders (2022 and 2023 OL Coach) – In 2021, the Raiders’ OL finished a horrendous 28th according to PFF. In 2022, Bricillo’s first year as the Raiders OL coach, the unit greatly improved and only allowed 35 sacks the entire season. This ranked as the 9th fewest sacks allowed in the NFL that year. The Raiders as a team also rushed for 2,059 yards the whole season. That is the most rushing yards the Raiders have had in a single season since 2011! To put a bow on things for the 2022 season, the Raiders OL ranked 10th overall by PFF’s final rankings. Moving to Bricillo’s 2023 stint with the Raiders, he had more or less the same kind of success. The unit finished 10th overall again while also having the 6th-best pass-blocking grade in the league.
Stop 3: New York Giants (2024 and 2025 OL Coach) – The 2024 season is where Bricillo really began to see some adversity when it came to his offensive line play. The 2024 New York Football Giants OL allowed 215 pressures and 48 sacks throughout the entirety of the season. After having his worst season as an OL coach yet, Bricillo bounced back dramatically with the Giants’ 2025 OL. Bricillo’s 2025 unit jumped to the 9th overall PFF-ranked offensive line unit while allowing only 140 pressures and 15 sacks! Keep in mind, Bricillo was able to keep all five OL starters from 2024 to 2025. This two-season jump is the clearest evidence I see that Carmen Bricillo can produce a “year 2 leap” in his offensive line play.
As you’ve probably been able to tell, Bricillo units have generally landed at better than league average every single year, according to PFF metrics. Even when the OL unit is below par, as in New York’s 2024 OL, Bricillo has proven that he’s able to improve his unit’s success as long as the OL unit holds together. I’m not saying it guarantees that Bricillo will always turn around a bad OL unit. All I’m saying is that he’s done it before in New York.
As most of us probably know, the Titans had the 32nd-ranked offensive line two years ago and the 18th-ranked offensive line last year. While technically 32 to 18 is an improvement, 18 is still below league average. In terms of the 2026 season, outlets such as PFF are already predicting the Titans’ OL to struggle this year even with three returning starters from last year.
Understanding every team, year, and situation is different, if Bricillo’s previous success at the Raiders shows us anything, the Titans OL unit can make a real step forward in 2026. In my honest opinion, this year for the Titans is probably going to resemble what Bricillo’s first year at the Giants looked like. If the Titans OL has a rough year this year, hopefully they’ll be able to maintain as much roster consistency as possible to enter 2027 on the right foot. I realize that all these projections rely on analytics and most of the line staying healthy, but it is still a good exercise to see what the Titans OL could be in the next two years.
One aspect about this coaching staff I haven’t mentioned is that Offensive Coordinator Brian Daboll and Bricillo are coaching together again. This consistency in the offensive scheme could pay dividends in how the Titans offensive line unit plays this year. Another aspect of most offensive lines that can make or break a season is injuries. Bricillo’s two best years, Raiders ‘23 and Giants ‘25, came with pretty good health for the OL as a whole. As long as the Titans OL remains generally healthy throughout the whole season, I personally don’t think it’s an insane prediction to say they’ll finish right at or above league average.
All in all, Bricillo’s history shows that he’s able to produce quick results (Raiders) or a slower-building turnaround (Giants). Both are plausible for this year’s Titans, and the overall health and continuity of the OL unit could be the biggest swing factor. With Cam Ward, the most important piece of the Tennessee Titans, entering year two, he’s going to at least need to see signs of improvement if this offensive line doesn’t come out of the gate as a league-average unit.
Man, I tell you what – taking a random vacation day on a Friday and dipping out to the movies to have a couple of gin and tonics and watch a fun movie makes for some Grade A self-care. That’s exactly what I did last week when Brandon called me up and said he was going to see The End of Oak Street. Now, I’ll admit that when I first saw the trailer for this film, I kind of side-eyed it. Then, early reviews started coming out and people were saying it was enjoyable. So, maybe I got my hopes up a little bit and that inflated my expectations, but I fell quite short of the consensus on this one. We fired up the mics to talk about it and how Anne Hathaway can do no wrong on the latest episode of The Vick’s Flicks Podcast!
Keep up with all of our work covering the world of movies on Nashville Movie Dispatch. Listen to The Vick’s Flicks Podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you take in your podcasts! Just search for ‘Nashville Movie Dispatch’ and you’ll find us. Or, just smash the play button on the embed below!
Stoney Keeley is the Editor in Chief of The SoBros Network, second on Football & Other F Words, analyst for Stacking The Inbox, and a Dogs Playing Poker on velvet connoisseur. He is a strong supporter of Team GSD, #BeBetter, and ‘Minds right, asses tight.’ “Big Natural” covers the Tennessee Titans, the NFL Draft, Nashville, Yankee Candle, and a whole wealth of nonsense. Follow on Twitter @StoneyKeeley.
Elsewhere on the SoBros Network: Check out Stacking The Inbox for premium coverage of the Tennessee Titans and NFL Draft. Subscribe to Nashville Movie Dispatch for all of our movie content. We get weird on Phone It In, the history podcast that explores legendary tales, important historical figures, and events.
