New York Giants Draft Prospect: QB Cam Ward, Miami (Fla.)

Strengths

Weaknesses

Summary

If there is one word to describe Cam Ward, it’s playmaker. Ward has an innate creativity to his game that allows him to calmly process his surroundings, with a penchant for keeping his eyes downfield. Reluctance is not synonymous with Ward; he has no issue challenging tight windows or letting the ball fly downfield.

He possesses very good overall arm talent with an ability to layer throws over the middle of the field with touch and the arm strength to stress defenses vertically.

Ward understands his receivers' catch radius over the middle of the field and does a good job placing the football within that radius while being spatially cognizant of the defender's location/leverage. Ward also exercises anticipation over the middle of the field to protect his receivers and move the chains.

He operated mostly out of the shotgun in his career, which is not ideal. However, his fast release and timing allowed him to operate rhythmically at a solid level in quick game, although Ward would play out of structure often. Ward does have an astute comprehension of processing defenses pre-to-post snap and understands defensive structures and has a high football IQ. 

Although Ward’s windup starts low, he still promptly releases the football with solid weight transfer from his lower-half through his hips and into his throw. His standard launch point is slightly lower than average, but Ward possesses excellent range and variance with his launch point – he can find a way to throw through a forest.

He has a sort of slacken drop back that is not necessarily precise and determined, but rather relaxed. Ward is patient behind the line of scrimmage and looks to throw before he runs – his receivers should also be creative!

The unconventional drop back and shot-gun heavy exposure will lead to fair questions on operating certain under-center rhythm-based offenses at the next level; I’m not insinuating that he CAN’T do these things; we just haven’t seen them consistently exercised through his college career. 

Overall, Cam Ward can attack every level of the field with anticipation, touch, drive, and a creative nature that could get him in trouble at the next level. He has to hone in his tendency to do too much and understand to live another down. Ward has a tendency to look for the big play instead of taking what is there, which leads to an interesting duality that conceivably can be coached.

There is also a bit of recklessness with his gunslinger mentality. It’s plausible that his reckless plays can be reigned in, albeit he won’t have nearly as much time to extend plays at the next level; if he can control the reckless nature, Ward can marry his cognitive skills with his arm talent and creativity to be one of the more reliable and exciting starting quarterbacks in the league. 

GRADE: 6.85