Stateline, NV -- I did not approach Tennessee Titans head coach Robert Saleh at the most opportune time on Saturday during the second round of the 2026 American Century Championship. He was headed from the driving range into the clubhouse at the Edgewood Tahoe Resort after completing his round, but I had to ask him about Carnell Tate when I had the chance.
Saleh was short but clear about his feelings on the former Ohio State Buckeyes star receiver and the No. 4 overall pick in the 2026 NFL draft when I asked him about the selection and Tate's development.
"Carnell's awesome and coming along nicely. I'm super excited to work with him moving forward," Saleh told me. While he had an intense demeanor before my question -- sidebar, Saleh is the most hulking human being I've ever seen in person -- he was all smiles after talking about Tate.
How could he not be? Many gave the Titans grief for taking Tate ahead of perceived higher-ceiling picks like fellow ex-Buckeye, EDGE Arvell Reese. Even Tate himself sounded surprised he wasn't picked in the latter half of the top 10.
"Realistically, I thought I was going to go six or seven or eight. … I was shocked for real, I didn't expect to go that high," Tate said after the draft on the St. Brown Podcast.
Still, Tate caught 13 of his 14 contested targets during the 2025 season. Few stats better predict NFL success at WR than making catches in traffic or under duress. Tate was practically unstoppable in the air on Julian Sayin 50/50 balls last year.
At the end of the day, Tate was the guy that the new brain trust chose. Saleh, along with fellow former professional New York head football coach Brian Daboll, the Titans' new head play-caller, both made a splash with their first draft pick in Tennessee.
It's important that the new regime is on the same page with its first pick. The defensive-minded Saleh clearly trusted Daboll's evals to get a top-flight skill-position threat to put up points in this ongoing rebuild down in Nashville; a rebuild that's now four playoff-less seasons in.
Say what you will about Reese's ceiling, and there will probably be other studs who develop from the latter half of the top 10. But as Saleh has explained in the past, Tate was someone drafted by the Titans for a hyper-specific and damn good reason.
Robert Saleh and Co. armed Cam Ward with a WR1 in Carnell Tate
Saleh's explanation as to why Tate was picked where he was back in April was pretty self-explanatory: he's arming the team's No. 1 pick in the 2025 NFL draft, quarterback Cam Ward, with a serious weapon out wide.
"Not to say he's the most important piece, but he's pretty important, and that's our quarterback,"Â Saleh told Paul Kuharsky about choosing Tate at No. 4 to play with Ward. "We're doing everything we can to help him and surround him with players who can get the ball in their hands and go score. Carnell [Tate] was obviously by far the top receiver on our board. When we got to No. 4, it was a very easy decision to make."
Truthfully, not much more needs to be said about the Tate pick. Everything worthwhile will come once Tate shows the world this fall why he wasn't a reach at No. 4.
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