All Twenty-Tuesday: T.J. Ward

If you’ve been an avid reader of the Cover 3 column over the last six or seven months, hopefully you’ve realized that we don’t just want to give you a synopsis of what happens on the football field, but rather, explain to you why things happen the way they do.

So, why did the Tampa Bay Buccaneers bring in T.J. Ward?

Certainly the eight-year vet has his accomplishments. He’s been a three-time Pro Bowler, one with the Browns and two with the Broncos. He was a second-team All Pro player in 2013, and won Super Bowl 50 with Denver as a key part of their “No Fly Zone” defense.

Ward was the perfect strong safety in Denver’s aggressive Cover 3 defense. In it, there wasn’t all this help coverage with multiple zones and layers of the field which relied on chemistry and communication. Instead, it was a very man-to-man, “heads up” kind of defense that pinned an aggressive style of coverage using a single high safety with a top-notch pass rush.

As you’ve probably started to catch on, there are different types of safeties, not just the two that Madden divides them up into. Yes, calling players free and strong safety are the general terms, but there are certain skills that one strong safety might rely on that work for one defense that don’t necessarily line up with another strong safety in a different defense. Ward played strong safety for both the Broncos and the Browns, but it wasn’t a very traditional strong safety role in the way you might think of it. Sure, strong safeties generally play more towards the line of scrimmage, but Ward’s role was even more creative beyond that.

Though he did line up on the back end at times, most of Ward’s best work came from a position called a SPUR linebacker, which plays closer to the line of scrimmage than a normal strong safety would. In a quick history lesson of the Cover 3, we have explained the names and roles of the MIKE (middle), WILL (weakside) and SAM (strongside) linebackers, but now that you’re up to speed on the intro, it’s time for the next course.

In today’s NFL, with offenses doing everything they can to get creative, defenses have had to get creative in response. Thus, the birth of the hybrid SPUR and DEVIL positions have come around to be pretty common (though the names of them may change here and there). The SPUR and DEVIL positions are technically linebacker positions, both of which have their origins and success rooted in the 3-4 front.

A SPUR linebacker, is a safety/linebacker hybrid position. These are safeties that do most of their work at the linebacker level, and can be used to get more speed in the box without giving up too much physicality. The DEVIL linebacker is a linebacker/defensive end hybrid. These are players who can line up on the edge one play and drop into coverage the next – pretty typical for standup linebackers. Since every coach has different terminology, a DEVIL player could also be called a JACK linebacker.

Ward is much more of the SPUR linebacker type than he is a traditional Cover 2 strong safety who drops back into coverage just as much as he does walk up in run support. Ward’s skills are best used around the line of scrimmage and getting through traffic/contact, and that’s why using him there the most makes sense.

Closing speed is one of my favorite traits about Ward, and that can be best shown in the clip above.

Not only can Ward play what appeared to be a linebacker spot, he also played a good amount of slot corner for the Broncos. The reason for this is because of plays like the one above. When the offense knows the defense is going to play man coverage, they can often manipulate it with mismatches much easier than if it were zone. Since they know which players will be guarding which, they can create space using others as decoys, pulling certain defenders away form where the ball is going to go. This is often what gets smaller defensive backs in trouble. But, as you can see in the clip above, not Ward.

Ward has the speed and the strength to take on bigger players like tight ends in space shown above. That play was one that had good design should have gone for a bigger gain.

When you allow Ward to play near the line of scrimmage, he can also match up well against the smaller, shifiter players, as shown above against Julian Edelman, because of how physical he can be.

Ward was in as the slot corner in the play above, and the way you can tell that is because not only was there the deep safety behind him, but there was also another safety to the far left. So, yes, if you’re keeping score at home, that’s three safeties on the field at the same time, something we know the Bucs wanted to do with J.J. Wilcox – apparently he just wasn’t enough of a creative piece to do it.

So, I suppose the question is now, “Trevor, why three safeties? Does this mean Tampa doesn’t trust Robert McClain or Javien Elliott?”

It’s not that they don’t trust them, it’s all about neutralizing potential mismatches. Think about it on the flip side. You know how Tampa Bay has two very big and athletic tight ends, Cam Brate and O.J. Howard, to make the defense put a determined personnel on the field to stop it, therefore creative a chain reaction of scenarios that lean in Tampa Bay’s favor? That’s what they’re trying to prevent other teams from doing by acquiring Ward.

That bring us to the exact reason why I think Ward was brought to Tampa Bay: to stop tight ends.

In the play above, Ward was lined up as the slot cornerback against Rob Gronkowski, arguably the best tight end in the game, and truly one of the top mismatch players to ever play football, when healthy.

Normally, an offense is screwed why Gronkowski gets off the line of scrimmage. When he’s inline with his hand in the ground, at least a more athletic linebacker can hope to rough him up out of his stance and disrupt a tight end’s timing a little before he has to try to keep up with him. In space, there’s next to zero linebackers in the NFL who stand a chance against the likes of Gronk in the slot, from an athletic stand point, and there are almost no cornerback who could handle him from a size standpoint.

So, what does a team do? Insert your hybrid – SPUR (if you have one).

The play above is probably my favorite “this is why T.J. Ward is here” play.

When teams put elite tight ends out wide, it’s terrifying. At that point, there’s no chance you can have a linebacker follow him out there, so it’s just a cornerback most of the time. Knowing that, there’s usually a massive height difference, and the quarterback can just throw the ball up in the air knowing the cornerback has no shot. Putting tight ends on the outside also forces a defense to shift an outside corner to an uncomfortable spot, which has a chain reaction throughout the secondary. This is great for short yardage and the red zone. But, against tight ends like Gronk, Travis Kelce, Jimmy Graham, Greg Olsen, etc., they’re so fast that they can be used on the outside everywhere on the field.

Without a player to stop this, or at least stand a chance, it’s checkmate for a defense. The Bucs realized that and got themselves a player who more than gives them a chance. Ward plays the clip above perfectly. In it, he gave Gronk the respect he deserved as a deep threat, but made sure to keep his distance perfect as to break on a short pass. The pass ended up being short, and Ward was there so quick he forced an incompletion.

Not many safeties can do that.

In the play above, we saw Ward cover Gronkowski from an inline position, which really completes the diversity of coverages he can have against tight ends – inline, in the slot and on the outside.

In that play, Ward was able to get physical with Gronk, yet not get out-muscled too much as to give up ground down the field. Instead, Ward was able to keep up and warrant a no-throw on a match-up that usually calls for an easy toss for a big gain.

We’ve seen how Ward can operate and have success both as a slot corner and as a third safety in a “big nickel” (that just means three safeties with the third safety as the nickel player) package where he’s around the line of scrimmage. However, the Bucs don’t play much single-high safety, so if they were going to use him under those parameters, Ward would be just a sub-package and specialist player.

But, before we say that’s all he can be, the play above shows a glimpse of how you can still get the most of Ward as a safety in a two-deep system and still perhaps get away with it.

The play above is Ward in a “Robber” role, and it’s exactly what you’d think it is. Ward starts the pre-snap even with the other safety, but he creeps up into the second level at the last second to get a head start on covering his man (the tight end) and he covers him well. The Robber role (where one safety is in between the linebacker level and the safety level) can also be used in zone coverage, which is much more plausible for a Buccaneers team. It’s how Keith Tandy got his interception against Drew Brees in Raymond James last year.

So, if the Bucs plan on starting Ward at one of the safety positions, expect to see a good amount of that Robber concept from him to get him closer to the line of scrimmage, and specifically the tight ends.

In conclusion, using Ward correctly might look a little different than Bucs fans think – it might not even come in a “starting” role. It may be that Bucs fans don’t see the team immediately replace Tandy or Chris Conte with Ward, and instead us him as their “eraser” or “mismatch neutralizer.” That role, if used correctly, could be the piece that puts this Bucs defense over the top, and is truly a luxury role that almost no team in the NFL has.

Ward is best used when he can be at or around the line of scrimmage, combining both physicality and speed with sure tackling and consistency. If Bucs defensive coordinator Mike Smith can somehow integrate that aggressive, man coverage-natured, Cover 3 style, and this “No Fly Zone” player into his two-deep, communication-heavy defense, as a mismatch neutralizer, the Bucs might have acquired for themselves a defensive X-factor not many, if any, teams have.