Charvarious Ward played cornerback and covered some of the world’s best receivers and did it well and helped his team win a Super Bowl — and could barely see. [ :-) ]
That’s a hell of a sentence to type, even in a year when dang near anything seems to be true, but here we are, on the phone with the Chiefs’ top cornerback asking about one of his five senses.
“I finally can see,” he said. “First time being able to really see good.”
Ward had LASIK surgery on March 10, which turned out to be perfect timing with many elective surgeries being limited in the days after because of the conronavirus pandemic.
He first publicly mentioned his bad eyesight in a conversation in January, and the response from that column included eye surgeons offering to fix him for free. He chose one in Indianapolis, but he showed up with a bigger problem than the doctors may have figured.
Ward remembered them saying he had one of the worst conditions possible for the surgery, with problems of both far-sightedness and near sightedness.
“It’s real complicated,” Ward said. “I can’t really explain it.”
Bad vision has been part of Ward’s life as long as he can remember. He repeated kindergarten, actually, because teachers thought he had a learning disability. Turned out he just needed glasses. He ended up skipping a year of high school and graduating with his original class.
But even as an adult, Ward would have to squint excessively to see. Sometimes, the problem was so bad he went cross-eyed. He’d get headaches.
“I couldn’t see a thing, man,” he said. “I couldn’t see nothing.”
Now, he’s 20-20. Doesn’t need contacts to watch TV. He can drive at night. He can see a football and, yes, this really is a crazy story.
Ward, undrafted out of college, made his way onto the roster and then into starting lineup of an eventual Super Bowl champion without being able to see the football he was trying to keep his man from catching.
Here’s his answer to the question you’ve probably been asking since the start of this column: How the hell did that happen?
“God blessed me with some natural talent, natural abilities,” he said. “I could see a human body that’s right in front of me, but once that ball is in the air, who knows what’s going to happen? I could see it when it first got in the air, but once it starts traveling, I just lose track of it and have to pray I put my hands in the right spot. I just have to pray the ball comes back in my line of sight.”
Ward does not view this as a cure-all. You might remember the wild play he gave up last season on third and 17 against the Batimore Ravens, when Lamar Jackson’s desperation pass hung in the air. Ward should have intercepted it. He was in perfect position. But Ravens receiver Willie Snead beat him to the ball.
Knowing what we know now, it’s easy to wonder if better vision would’ve allowed Ward to make that play.
Ward says no.
“I’m not going to blame that on that,” he said. “I didn’t know anybody was around me, so I was going to let the ball come down.”
OK, cool, hard not to respect that.
But corrected vision does make you wonder whether Ward can be a different player now. He ranked first in passer rating and reception percentage allowed, and third in yards allowed and yards per coverage snap among cornerbacks with 1,000 or more snaps last year, according to Pro Football Focus.
But in all those snaps, he had just two interceptions.
Ward talked all last season and this offseason about wanting to become a better playmaker. He wants interceptions, not just good coverage and, well, at the risk of stating the obvious it would seem that being able to see what he’s supposed to catch is a good start.
“This year I’m trying to intercept everything,” he said. “I’m not going to be scared to turn my head around. Because I know now I can see the ball and stay in contact with the receiver at the same time. So I feel like it’s going to make me a way better playmaker, which is what we need in the secondary: turnovers.”
Ward is scheduled to be a restricted free agent after this season. The Chiefs have been diligent in signing their best players long-term — Patrick Mahomes and Chris Jones most famously, but Travis Kelce, Tyreek Hill, Mitchell Schwartz, Tyrann Mathieu and Frank Clark are all under contract through at least 2021.
Ward is the team’s best player who is not secured beyond this season. There are a million factors that will help decide his future. Many of them are out of his control.
He sees this season — and his improved vision — as a way to further establish himself.
“I just want to take the next evolution in my game and become one of the top corners in the game,” he said. “I feel like I’m up there right now. I’m just kind of underrated. Don’t too many people know my name. I just want to get my name on the TV screen and have people know my name.”
Originally Posted by Dunerdr:
I remember at the time thinking we traded a guy who contributed before injury for a practice squad player.
I had never heard of Ward, but as soon as we made the deal I watched college tape on him and you could see the potential. Not sure what the Cowboys were thinking on this one. [Reply]
Originally Posted by JohnnyHammersticks:
I had never heard of Ward, but as soon as we made the deal I watched college tape on him and you could see the potential. Not sure what the Cowboys were thinking on this one.
They had a stacked cb room at the time like crazy amount of talent. [Reply]
Originally Posted by JohnnyHammersticks:
I had never heard of Ward, but as soon as we made the deal I watched college tape on him and you could see the potential. Not sure what the Cowboys were thinking on this one.
The Cowboys had a logjam of corner talent at the time. Jerruh knew Byron Jones was fast approaching the end of his deal, but he got greedy for the short term and tried to turn a profit on a lottery ticket that might not even be good. I can certainly understand that strategy-- the Chiefs in the past have attempted to hide dudes on the practice squad in the past and gotten screwed when other teams picked them up (David Irving, Bradley McDougald, etc). It would have been nice if we at least had gotten some kind of cheap compensation via trade instead of just seeing them produce elsewhere.
What doesn't make sense to me is why Jerruh chose Parker Ehinger. I mean, Ward has been such a success that we could have given the Cowboys a 3rd round pick, and at the time it would have been facepalm worthy but in the end we still probably would have come out on top of that deal. Instead, we gave up a nobody we were going to cut anyway.
Sure, it was viewed as depth for depth, but the upside Ward had? The Cowboys knew what he could have the potential to be. Were they that in love with Ehinger? The fact we were going to cut Ehinger, much less plug him in at starter, had to at least cause them to pause for a bit.
Honestly, it was kind of an epically stupid trade for the Cowboys at the time, not even with the benefit of hindsight. [Reply]
Originally Posted by Discuss Thrower:
I've got something similar and I've been told LASIK is out of the question...
I have spinal stenosis in a similar capacity that Gronk has and my doctors have told me that I'm not a candidate for the surgery he got. When I ask "Why?" they tell me I can opt to pay the out of pocket costs ($111,000) if that's what I "elect" to do. :-) [Reply]
Originally Posted by Discuss Thrower:
I've got something similar and I've been told LASIK is out of the question...
I had pretty bad astigmatism and they recommended this procedure where they laser off a layer on certain parts of your eye to make it more circular. I got it done and for the next two days I was in the worst pain in my life, then moderate pain for like 3 months. But...I can see. [Reply]
It is interesting how we've been having things go our way the last few years, when for fucking decades it was "b/c Chiefs," and it seemed that everything we touched turned to shit. [Reply]
