Charvarious Ward was playing blind... but not anymore

[Dante84]

This is crazy, man.

Chiefs cornerback Charvarius Ward has reason to believe he’ll be a different player now


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.”