PFF Ranks 49ers CB Charvarius Ward 13th Among NFL Free Agents

The 49ers most likely will lose an outstanding cornerback this offseason.
Jan 5, 2025; Glendale, Arizona, USA; San Francisco 49ers cornerback Charvarius Ward (7) against the Arizona Cardinals at State Farm Stadium. Mandatory Credit: Mark J. Rebilas-Imagn Images
Jan 5, 2025; Glendale, Arizona, USA; San Francisco 49ers cornerback Charvarius Ward (7) against the Arizona Cardinals at State Farm Stadium. Mandatory Credit: Mark J. Rebilas-Imagn Images / Mark J. Rebilas-Imagn Images
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The 49ers most likely will lose an outstanding cornerback this offseason.

Charvarius Ward is scheduled to hit free agency and he will be the 13th-best player on the market according to Pro Football Focus.

"Ward struggled in 2024 and posted career lows in a number of PFF metrics, but his overall body of work will keep him as one of the top options on the market in 2025," writes PFF. "Last year was his best in the NFL to date, with his 86.5 PFF coverage grade ranking third among all players at the position. With cornerback teammate Deommodore Lenoir receiving an in-season extension, the writing appears to be on the wall that Ward will be on the way out of San Francisco."

Ward struggled largely because his daughter passed away during the season, which means he had to play while he was grieving and working through trauma. He very likely could bounce back next season on a good team with a good defensive coordinator, because he was outstanding under Steve Wilks, DeMeco Ryans and Steve Spagnuolo.

At his best, Ward is an elite press coverage cornerback who can cover big wide receivers man to man as well as any cornerback in the league. In 2023 when Wilks was the 49ers defensive coordinator, Ward routinely followed the opposing team's no. 1 wide receiver around the formation and covered him one on one no matter where he lined up. Almost no cornerbacks do this anymore.

Replacing him won't be easy for the 49ers. They recently gave Deommodore Lenoir a five-year extension, but he's much smaller than Ward. Renardo Green most likely will take Ward's place in the starting lineup.

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Grant Cohn
GRANT COHN

Grant Cohn has covered the San Francisco 49ers daily since 2011. He spent the first nine years of his career with the Santa Rosa Press Democrat where he wrote the Inside the 49ers blog and covered famous coaches and athletes such as Jim Harbaugh, Colin Kaepernick and Patrick Willis. In 2012, Inside the 49ers won Sports Blog of the Year from the Peninsula Press Club. In 2020, Cohn joined FanNation and began writing All49ers. In addition, he created a YouTube channel which has become the go-to place on YouTube to consume 49ers content. Cohn's channel typically generates roughly 3.5 million viewers per month, while the 49ers' official YouTube channel generates roughly 1.5 million viewers per month. Cohn live streams almost every day and posts videos hourly during the football season. Cohn is committed to asking the questions that 49ers fans want answered, and providing the most honest and interactive coverage in the country. His loyalty is to the reader and the viewer, not the team or any player or coach. Cohn is a new-age multimedia journalist with an old-school mentality, because his father is Lowell Cohn, the legendary sports columnist for the San Francisco Chronicle from 1979 to 1993. The two have a live podcast every Tuesday. Grant Cohn grew up in Oakland and studied English Literature at UCLA from 2006 to 2010. He currently lives in Oakland with his wife.