Though I have been wrong on many draft prospects, one of my best calls was ranking Patrick Mahomes QB1 ahead of Deshaun Watson heading into the 2017 NFL Draft. I’ve since rejected any comparisons of college prospects to Mahomes, and I’m not making one today, but I will say that Miami’s Cam Ward, the consensus QB1 in this year’s draft, shares one of Mahomes’ most important traits: A special awareness of everything happening on the football field.
Mahomes has a sixth sense for finding space in the passing game against coverages that certain routes shouldn’t be open against and finding ways to squeak out enough yardage to get first downs on scrambles. Ward doesn’t have Mahomes’ all-world arm talent, and Mahomes has since combined that sixth sense with a mastery of how defenses have been trying to defend him over the years.
But Ward’s awareness is just innate. We’ve all seen the amazing plays he can make outside of the pocket, connecting with receivers that many quarterbacks may not even see while on the run. However, out-of-structure plays can only take you so far in the NFL. What makes Ward a special prospect is how he applies his awareness and creativity to plays within the structure of the offense, within the pocket.
From a clean pocket, on dropbacks not including scrambles, Ward’s expected points added per dropback ranked seventh nationally in 2024. The ability to scramble is a big part of Ward’s game, but he’s also productive just as a passer. There are things he needs to clean up, but there is a lot of evidence that he performs well playing within structure and there’s potential to be even better.
Ward played 57 games throughout five seasons in college. That experience shows up with work at the line of scrimmage despite playing in his first season in Miami’s system in 2024. There are plays when the offense looks to the sideline for checks, but Ward sniffs out blitzes, adjusts protections and changes route concepts at the line scrimmage.
On this play against Florida on third-and-10, the protection slid to the right, meaning the back to Ward’s left, Mark Fletcher Jr. (No. 4), had to first scan for a linebacker to his side. Because the defense overloaded the right, there was no linebacker on Fletcher’s side. Ward alerted his back to watch for the inside linebacker to his right (No. 6). The linebacker blitzed and looped to the left side, but Fletcher had his eyes on him and picked him up. Ward had a great pocket and threw a perfect go-ball for a big play.
One of Ward’s favorite concepts is four verticals. The Miami offense has several variations of it in its playbook. Below is a diagram of four verticals with a switch release that Broncos head coach Sean Payton diagrammed on Twitter in 2020.
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52 All Go Special X Shallow Cross. 4 verticals or find @Cantguardmike X pic.twitter.com/xpzUd1URoI— Sean Payton (@SeanPayton) March 30, 2020
Miami offensive coordinator Shannon Dawson also favors running four verticals this way. It’s a concept that most quarterbacks learn how to read in high school, but it’s a concept that allows Ward to show off his best traits: anticipation, aggressiveness and accuracy.
Here versus Cal, Ward tried to catch the defense with 12 men on the field. You can see him pointing to the extra man out to the referees as he’s dropping back. Even after wasting a second to diagnose the defense, he quickly saw the safeties rotate to the weak side (single-receiver side), leaving the seam open. He deftly layered a pass over a linebacker to his receiver.
Later in the same game, Miami ran four verts with a clever outside receiver cross-field motion. This time, the motion caused the safeties to rotate to the strong side (three-receiver side), leaving the “special seam” wide open. Ward saw the coverage and hit his receiver for a huge gain.
Miami had to overcome a 20-point fourth-quarter deficit against Cal. The Hurricanes had to overcome a third-and-18 in the red zone to ignite the fourth-quarter flurry. Again, they ran a variation of four verticals, but on this version, they had the X receiver (top of the screen) run a crosser opposite of the verticals. This play looked like it was designed to get the X open, but Ward saw space to his receiver on the opposite side. Ward shortened his drop and threw a strike in the small sliver of space just before the hash mark. I’m not sure if this was designed to get the Z receiver the ball or if the coaches went over this with Ward on the sideline, but there are plenty of plays littered in his film in which he finds open receivers in an unorthodox manner.
Here against Georgia Tech, Miami ran yet another version of four verticals. The spacing got messed up, but Ward saw the free safety leaning inside and before his tight end Elijah Arroyo (No. 8) was open, he fired a pass into the seam. Because of how early the pass was thrown and the location, Arroyo was able to run after the catch and score.
Ward’s understanding of coverage and special awareness allowed him to protect his receivers despite throwing into tight windows. Slot receiver Xavier Restrepo and Ward had a special chemistry and often read defenses the same way.
On this play against Syracuse, the defense dropped into a Cover 3 zone. Corner routes usually aren’t open against Cover 3 because cornerbacks typically sit deep in the zones where corner routes are run into. Ward saw enough space between the free safety and corner to drop the ball into. As Restrepo was breaking outside, you could see him checking where the deep cornerback was. As he got out of his break, he slowed down and Ward put the ball in a location where the cornerback couldn’t make a play.
On this play against Florida, Restrepo saw the safety inching toward his side and knew the cornerback in front of him would blitz. He alerted Ward and they made a sight adjustment and completed a pass where the corner had vacated. Restrepo helped Ward on this play, but Ward does a good job of diagnosing perimeter blitzes on his own, as well.
Here, Miami had a run/pass option called (RPO). Quarterbacks usually read defenders on the back side of the play because they naturally have to turn to that direction to hand the ball off, but on this play, Ward was looking at the front-side safety. He saw the safety run to get over the top of his receiver and knew the corner was blitzing, so he pulled the ball out of his running back’s belly and side-armed a pass to his receiver for an easy completion.
On this pass, the cornerback didn’t blitz, but he was playing a trap technique in which he jumped the slot receiver on an out-breaking route. Ward saw the trap early and threw a perfect pass down the sideline for a big play.
Ward’s big plays outside of structure are spectacular, but his creativity from within the pocket is what could make him a special quarterback in the NFL. He has to be more willing to take easy, shorter completions rather than big-game hunt all the time, but it’s easier to get a quarterback to be more conservative than more aggressive. Also, how he looks for big plays is closer to the process of some of the best quarterbacks in the league rather than just recklessly chucking the ball deep.
This is a weak quarterback class overall, but Ward is by far the best prospect and deserves to be picked first. Titans head coach Brian Callahan worked with Joe Burrow, who likes to play out of shotgun and brilliantly balances in-structure play and out-of-structure play. It’s hard to imagine the Titans not taking Ward No. 1.
(Photo: Carmen Mandato / Getty Images)