Why Charvarius Ward's Poor Wild Card Outing Isn't Cause for Concern
It was a rough outing for cornerback Charvarius Ward against the Seahawks.
Wide receiver D.K. Metcalf was destroying him for the majority of the game. Metcalf dominating isn't a surprise to see as he is a tremendous receiver. Even the best cornerbacks will have their struggles with him.
But seeing Ward have his worst performance of the season against Metcalf was a bit of a surprise. The last time these two met in Week 15, it was Ward who had the upper hand in that matchup. Metcalf found it difficult to ever get going in that game with Ward putting the clamps on him. This time around it was Metcalf who put Ward in a corner.
Metcalf put up 10 catches for 136 yards and two touchdowns. One of the touchdowns came in garbage time, but it was the first touchdown where Metcalf embarrassed Ward on 50 yard play. Seeing a performance like that from Ward can raise concerns considering the 49ers are in the playoffs. It could snowball to the point where Ward can't find his high-level form again, but that isn't something to have cause for concern going forward.
“I think it'll fuel him a lot," said Kyle Shanahan following Ward's poor Wild Card outing. "He played as good as he could versus D.K. [Metcalf] in that first game and it's hard to do that again. D.K. is as good of a receiver as there is in this league. He is a problem to stop and I like that Mooney didn't stop, he didn't shy away from him once he got beat on that deep ball."
Cornerbacks get beat, especially against tremendous receivers, regardless of their level. There is absolutely no shame in Ward losing to Metcalf for most of the game. It happens. Not every wide receiver is going to be of the same caliber as Metcalf who excels vertically, which is the weakness in Ward's game. What is the most encouraging to come from that game is like Shanahan said. Ward never wavered one bit.
A cornerback's mentality needs to be ever strong so that they do not second guess what they are doing. Remember Ahkello Witherspoon? He had solid talent, but was mentally fragile whenever he got beat and that continually showed. An ever strong mentality is exactly what was put on display from Ward. He still played Metcalf relatively well despite losing most of his reps.
Ward ended up getting Metcalf's number in the end to end on a strong note so that his negative performance doesn't totally carry into the next game. I wouldn't worry much about Ward's poor performance snowballing into a total downward slide. He will be fine and up to the challenge as he has been all year long.
"You hope it doesn't happen too often and Mooney's done a hell of a job with that all year and I know he will come back and continue to do that this week.”
