Chiefs’ Charvarius Ward declares self-proclaimed slump over, eyes second-half push
Charvarius Ward endured a first half of the season to forget — certainly by his own standards.
The starting Chiefs cornerback suffered a fractured left hand in the season opener, which sidelined him in Week 2. And then he found himself on the wrong end of multiple bad plays from Weeks 5-8.
In the hours following the Chiefs’ Week 8 win over the New York Jets on Nov. 1, Ward, who gave up a 27-yard completion down the right sideline in the first quarter, took to social media and tweeted: “I’m in a slump…I gotta come out of it.”
To his credit, Ward owned his struggles on the field.
“I’m always hard on myself,” Ward said Wednesday, marking his first public comment since training camp. “I just want to be the best player that I know I can be.
“I’m just going to continue to try to improve and get better and be one of the best corners in the league by the end of the season. These last seven games, I’ve got to come out strong and be at my best.”
There’s a good reason the 6-foot-1, 198-pound Ward sounded hard on himself, especially given the Pro Bowl-caliber season he produced in 2019.
Ward appeared in all of the Chiefs’ 16 regular-season games last season, totaling 74 tackles, two interceptions, a forced fumble and 10 passes defensed. He was durable, evidenced by his 1,062 defensive snaps, which trailed only safety Tyrann Mathieu’s team-high 1,095 in 2019.
The fractured hand, however, affected his play in the first half of the 2020 season.
Ward thrives in press-man coverage and his heavily-bandaged hand altered how he typically defended receivers at the line of scrimmage. From Weeks 5-7, he was flagged for two pass interference calls, an illegal use of hands infraction and a defensive holding penalty.
“I was playing with a cast on, so I couldn’t really use my left hand how I was supposed to,” Ward said. “That hurt me a lot. It hurt me more mentally than anything.”
He might not have been 100 percent, but Ward’s very presence helped the Chiefs’ pass defense. KC enters Week 11 ranked eighth in the league, with the full trust of the Chiefs’ coaching staff.
“I was looking at him like, ‘Why are you so hard on yourself? You’re doing some really good things even though you have one hand,’” defensive backs coach Sam Madison said. “He wanted to be that dominant corner throughout the course of the season, but things come up.
“Injuries happen. It’s the NFL. Guys are going to watch those things throughout the course of the season, and they get injury reports and attack those things. He was able to fight through it.”
That was then, this is now.
Well rested after a week off, the Chiefs are focused on the second half of the season, starting with Sunday’s matchup against the Las Vegas Raiders, who victimized Ward on two scoring plays in Week 5.
A healthier Ward, who says the pain in his hand is “way, way down,” used the off-week to focus on improving his craft. With 30 tackles, a sack and four passes defended through nine games, he’s set his sights set on finishing strong and playing like he knows he can as one of the NFL’s better press-man coverage corners.
“I was really just working on my technique and my game all throughout the bye week,” he said. “Hopefully I’ll be better these next seven games. I know I will.”
As for his early-season issues and his tweet of Nov. 1?
“I’m already out of the slump, man,” Ward said emphatically. “The slump is over with.”
