Browns Film Room: Breaking down Josh McCown’s big day
October 15, 2015Report: Josh McCown still in Cleveland to mentor Johnny Manziel (Video)
October 15, 2015Sunday’s Browns-Broncos game at FirstEnergy Stadium will be T.J. Ward’s first time playing in Cleveland as a visitor after leaving the Browns via free agency in 2014. Ward says the Browns, in the midst of turmoil at the time, never offered him a contract. He was coming off of a Pro Bowl season.
“I didn’t feel like I was welcome back so that was pretty much it,” Ward said Thursday of his free agency. “I told you guys that before I wanted to come back, but you know how free agency works.” It’s unclear exactly what happened between Ward’s camp and the Browns front office, led by then-recently promoted Ray Farmer, but Ward says no contract offer was ever brought to him.1
“I wouldn’t put it on an individual,” Ward said when asked why he didn’t feel welcome. “It’s just communication between me, my agent and the organization…My four years in Cleveland, it was a lot of instability.”
Poor communication? Organizational instability? The Browns? Who knew?
A brief recap on Ward’s time with the Browns: He was drafted in the second round by Browns GM Tom Heckert in 2010, one round after Joe Haden. Eric Mangini was in his second year as Browns coach at the time. Mangini was fired after the 2011 season; Browns team president Mike Holmgren replaced him with Pat Shurmur. Heckert and Shurmur were fired after the 2012 season; Holmgren departed then as well. Rob Chudzinski was hired to coach the team in 2013, with Michael Lombardi taking over as GM under team president Joe Banner. Chudzinski was fired after one season, replaced in January 2014 by Mike Pettine. That February, Lombardi was fired and Banner announced that he would transition out of his job, with Ray Farmer succeeding Lombardi as GM.
[Related: T.J. Ward: The Strong Safety]
Meanwhile, Ward became a free agent after the 2013 season. He said Wednesday the Browns never offered him a contract, and he tweeted as much shortly after he left. Pettine says the decision not to re-sign Ward was made — presumably by Farmer — shortly after he was hired.2 On March 11, 2014, he Browns signed Donte Whitner, 17 months Ward’s senior, to a four-year contract worth $28 million. That same day, Ward signed a four-year, $23 million deal with the Broncos. Tom Heckert, the man who drafted Ward, is now Denver’s director of pro personnel.
Ward says he didn’t leave Cleveland by choice, and that Chudzinski’s firing was an unpleasant surprise. Chudzinski was the third coach Ward saw fired in his four years with the Browns.3
“I never wanted to leave,” Ward said. “It’s not like I wanted to get out of Cleveland. That wasn’t the case at all. Chud leaving, that was a disappointment but something I had dealt with before.
“I was upset by [Chudzinski’s firing]. I was shocked. I think a lot of players were upset by that because we really liked Chud. We thought he was a good coach and we thought we were going places with him, but unfortunately, the front office didn’t feel that way and we went in a different direction completely, with me, as well.”
Things seem to have worked out alright for Ward. He followed up his 2013 Pro Bowl appearance with another in 2014. He won AFC Defensive Player of the Week two weeks ago — the same week Philip Rivers won the offensive award after leading the San Diego Chargers to a win over the Browns — for his performance against the Minnesota Vikings. Ward finished the game with six tackles and two sacks, the latter of which was a game-clinching strip-sack of Teddy Bridgewater with 35 seconds remaining. The Broncos are undefeated and boast one of the stingiest defenses in the league.
“It definitely feels good to be 5-0,” said Ward. “I’m not playing any harder for Denver. I’m the same player. I just come out to play every week and giving it my all. We’re 5-0 right now. Just happy to be that.”
The greatest difference between the Browns and Broncos, Ward says, is the steadiness of the organization. The Broncos have been owned by Pat Bowlen since 1984. Some asshole with big teeth has been running the football side of things since 2011.
“I’d say the most difference [between Denver and Cleveland] is the stability that’s here and that’s pretty much it, how it’s ran because we have good players in Cleveland. We still have good players, it’s just how everything else is handled.”
Ward says he isn’t sure what sort of reaction he’ll get playing in Cleveland as a Browns opponent. He didn’t leave the city like, say, Carlos Boozer, and it doesn’t seem that he should be booed. But a visitor is a visitor; we shall see.
“It’s definitely going to be some feelings there for sure, being on the other side and being familiar with the team, the city the players,” said Ward. “I don’t really know what to expect, but I hope it’s a little bit of open arms, but I know I’m going to get some boos when I start making plays.”
Browns quarterback Josh McCown said that finding and accounting Ward will be a priority for the offense.
“He’s an excellent player,” the AFC Offensive Player of the Week said of Ward. “He can do it all. You guys know him better than I do because he’s been here, but you’re exactly right. He’s got all the skills that you want in a safety.”
Ward says that he won’t be playing any differently because of his history with the Browns.
“I stay with a chip on my shoulder,” Ward said. “You guys have seen me on a daily basis. Week to week, I have a chip.
“I’m trying to make this my next big game.”
- “[An offer] wasn’t brought to me if I did [get one] so that means it wasn’t worth even bringing up.” [↩]
- “The decision was made right when I got here,” Pettine said. [↩]
- Broncos coach John Fox left the team after Ward’s first year in Denver. Ward was asked about that, given all the turnover in Cleveland. His response, per the transcript: “(Laughter). I know, right? I came to an organization thinking I’m going to have the same coach and another coach comes.” [↩]
20 Comments
I was real critical of Ward’s pass coverage his first couple of years, but he dramatically improved and by 2013 he seemed to have developed a good football IQ. So once you’ve suffered through the growing pains and he’s close to elite, and you have cap room, why show him the door? Made no sense to me to switch to the similar but older Whitner. All I could think was that Ward had gotten himself a locker room lawyer rep, or something like that.
Good orgs don’t cast off their own good players just as they enter their prime. This was worse than losing Sheard or Skrine, because Ward is so clearly one of the league’s better players at his position. Sure would have been nice to see him cleaning up the messes our linebackers make.
The worst thing about this, if true, is that he was not offered a contract at all?!? That is piss poor business. Dude made the probowl and was entering his prime. You have to offer something. Make it his decision whether to accept it or not. What is the worst thing he does, says no?
Ward was the absolute king of tackling his WR/TE to cover, exactly 1 yard after the offensive player got the first down. He was the secondary equivalent of James Laureneitas (sic).
Ward, while a thumper, blew a lot of tackles. The 2010 game vs the Jets is just one of several games where he didnt wrap up and WR took the ball for a TD or deep into Browns territory on the decisive play of the game.
Ward also was a troublemaker off the field, and that played out. He threw a glass mug at a bartender’s face soon upon his arrival in Colorado.
4 years in CLE – 5 forced fumbles, 5 INT, 5 sacks. A little more than 1 a year. High impact guy?
Letting Ward walk was not the end of the world.
My cloudy recollection of him as a player: he’d make four good, simple football plays and then the fifth would be a terrible line to the ball carrier resulting in a big play. Never understood the Ward love.
He had a sweet twitter handle. I liked that.
Ward and Skrine combo was not good. Wonder if he has still been giving up the big plays
In Denver he’s on a defense loaded with pro bowlers where he can do what he does in Cleveland all he had was Haden. It’s no wonder Ward stood out both positively and negatively. The bigger issue is, what others have already mentioned, not even offering him a contract. So you basically made a lateral move replacing Ward with Whitner. If Whitner hadn’t wanted to come home who would Browns have played? These are the small things that you find out that make you understand what a pathetic franchise this has turned into.
“[An offer] wasn’t brought to me if I did [get one] so that means it wasn’t worth even bringing up.”
Anyone else find this a little fishy? I mean, if NO offer was made, why even say the rest of the sentence. Anyway, I’m not so absolutely certain that we can definitively declare that the Browns “never made an offer.” His mentioning his agent is instructive. I think we should pause a bit before drawing hard and fast conclusions.
As for the stuff about stability, though, I think we should pay attention. Calling for Pettine to be fired, or even suggesting it, regardless of this season’s outcome, should stop. Just stop. Right now. Stop it.
I agree he started with very iffy coverage skills and a guy who went for the big shot instead of wrapping up, but he improved significantly. I mean, the guy you describe in 2010 was not the Ward of 2013, and he went to the pro bowl again last year. The Browns weren’t interested in the ’13 version.
dang, now we can’t even SUGGEST it, REGARDLESS of how season plays out. Last time I’m using my vaca days in North Korea, and really mean it this time.
Just eat your daily ball of rice and be happy. Okay?
ouch !! … pathetic is a strong word.
Meanwhile the Browns defense is ranked last..
The Whitner signing does change the situation. But regardless, I was never that impressed with Ward’s play, especially at his eventual price tag. That’s just my know-nothing, novice opinion though. And it’s not like successful franchises re-signs all their average-to-great players. The best teams let plenty of guys walk. Some, like the Pats, almost seem categorically against re-signing anybody.
So basically, whatever. Don’t care. We didn’t overpay a decent player. Sign of dysfunction? Pathetic? Maybe. Even assuming that’s the case, it’s a drop in the bucket when compared to the 60,439 other bad decisions I’ve seen since 1999.
A football player lying to the press in hopes of getting a better deal for himself?!?! UNFATHOMABLE.
Of all the cases where this happened, Ward probably makes me the least mad because there was at least a plan in place. They went out and got Whittner and he’s been pretty good. I don’t know that we needed to make that change, but whatever. It’s been mostly fine.
But in general this sort of thing is what makes me the most nuts about the Browns: letting quality players walk when we could afford to keep them because the next FO up wants something different or we’ve obsoleted a previous draft pick because of a change in schemes. They didn’t make an offer to Ward and went out to get a different (older, more expensive) guy, they waited until the last possible second to look at extending Mack and ended up in a mess where they matched a bad contract and had to use another first round pick on a possible replacement, they let Skrine go and drafted a gaggle of not-very-effective cb’s other than K’waun williams, Sheard is making waves in NE while Mingo does not very much here, and the list goes on. We keep using high draft picks on the same positions over and over, and that’s why we never get to the other positions.
I guess it’s fine to let your few draft successes walk in their prime if you can really draft. Not so much if you’re just the Browns’ most recent version of the smartest man in the room.
Ward actually got more guaranteed money than Whitner, but your point is valid. I think the Browns will probably end up keeping Whitner around and paying him that non-guaranteed money anyway.
You’re making an assumption in an information vacuum. They didn’t make an offer.
it’s quite possible for the team to have talked to the agent for several years and many many times and were given the idea that he didn’t want to return. The Browns have no reason to get into a lovers quarrel with Ward at this point. Ward didn’t play here for his full contract and then just walked without any discussion about his contract in the last 18 mos. It’s possible I guess, but extremely unlikely.
Ward rated as exactly average in pass protection his last year (but elite vs the run) in 2013, after several years of being shoddy vs, the pass.