Too Deep 96 #7: Stop Worrying and Learn to Love Cam Ward's Bombs

Yes, Cam Ward throws up some hero balls. But don't let his Mad Bomber reputation scare you away.

PREVIOUSLY ON THE TOO DEEP 96: Check out Travis Hunter here, Ashton Jeanty here and a quartet of nasty defensive players here.

#7 Cam Ward, Quarterback, Miami

Ward does a beautiful thing now and then: he checks down to an open receiver in the flat.

College quarterbacks are often terrible at checking down. They’re hardwired to stick to their first read too long, then scramble in search of heroics. Checking down isn’t sexy – it’s more Kirk Cousins-y – but it’s an essential skill that keeps a young quarterback upright and out of third-and-20 situations.

Ward’s willingness to check down may surprise you because of his mad-bombing, throw-it-through-three-defenders-and-into-the-sun reputation. Reputations are like that. And Ward does indeed do some ill-advised things with the football. It’s the well-advised, poorly-advertised things he does with the football that make him the one quarterback worth reaching for in the 2025 draft.

For example, Ward resets his feet when looking for his second or third read downfield. Just searching for those secondary targets is a hard-to-find trait in a quarterback prospect. But to do so in a mechanically-sound way? Glorious.

When Ward scrambles, he often (not always) tries to stay parallel with the line of scrimmage instead of backtracking 20 yards like the typical mobile collegiate video game character. He keeps his eyes downfield, but if he ends up running for daylight, he wisely steps out of bounds, not because he lacks strength/courage (he can bulldoze defenders in goal-line situations), but because unnecessary hits are bad.

In short, Ward has a combination of many of the “soft skills” that helped both Jayden Daniels and Bo Nix succeed as rookies.

Don’t confuse all of this gushing about checkdowns and prudent scrambles as faint praise. Ward does lots of the sizzly stuff well. He can fire fastballs into tight spots AND deliver touch passes over defenders’ arms. He has a quick release, especially when he throws sidearm on snap-and-deliver quick slants and RPOs. He runs well, and he throws as well on the run as Caleb Williams did at USC.

The reason I led with Ward’s nuts-and-bolts skills is because they are what separate him, significantly, from Colorado’s Shedeur Sanders. Ward looks ready to lead an NFL offense; Sanders looks ready to turn every snap into NFL Blitz. And Ward appears to have a stronger arm, too.

The downsides of Ward’s game: he throws too many danger balls, his placement is spotty, and he sometimes shares Sanders’ habit of scrambling backwards in search of an all-time highlight and either getting dumped or throwing one of those danger balls.

The placement issues may stem from Ward’s variety of throwing deliveries: side-armed slants can look like low-and-away sliders when they reach receivers.

Ward launches lots of deep shots into traffic, assuming that Xavier Restrepo, Jalcolby George or another member of his stacked arsenal will make a play. That assumption is often correct, but Ward got away with some interception-worthy passes last year. All top prospects take ill-advised deep shots; Ward was already starting to wean himself from them as the 2024 season progressed.

What’s most interesting about Ward’s game is that it is still evolving. He was a Wing-T quarterback in high school. That made him a non-recruit and forced him to start his college career at Incarnate Word during the COVID-marred 2020 season, which actually took place in spring of 2021. He portalled up to Washington State for two years, then to Miami in search of NIL money and a Williams/Daniels-free draft class.

Ward has improved at every stop. Daniels showed similar development over a long collegiate journey, as did Nix once he extracted himself from Auburn. An extra year in college may do top quarterback prospects a great deal of good, especially if it teaches them the joys of checking down and taking what the defense gives you a little more often.

Ward is a cross between a much less turnover-happy Jameis Winston and a more athletic, more mature (when leaving college) Baker Mayfield. He’s a worthy first-overall pick who offers everything a quarterback-needy team can reasonably ask for, right down to a relatively clean injury report. He should be a capable Day One starter as a rookie and could develop into a star quickly.

It looks like Ward is locked in to the Tennessee Titans as the first-overall pick. If I ran a quarterback-needy team like the Giants, I would have made a significant offer to trade up for him instead of building a Jameis Winston-Russell Wilson club sandwich. Because after Ward, the prospect pickings are both slim and weird.

Photo by Jar-Lar via Creative Commons Sharealike.