Denzel Ward gets hot with long-term Browns future at stake a year after setbacks wrecked Pro Bowl-caliber season

The inherent pressure of playing for a contract extension is not a myth, at least not in the eyes of Denzel Ward.

The Browns cornerback has handled the heat well this year and quietly put together perhaps his best season since his hometown NFL team drafted him fourth overall in 2018 out of Ohio State.

“I would definitely say there's a little added pressure in a sense,” Ward, a Nordonia High School graduate, told the Beacon Journal in a phone interview Tuesday. “I don't want to say it's not real, that there's no pressure, but more so the pressure is just when you're sitting at home or you're just off to the side not really doing much.

“That's not really my focus when I'm out there playing, but it is obviously in the back of your mind, something that's out there, goals that you may set. But my main thing is just really having fun and playing the game that I've been playing since I was a little kid.”

The cold, hard business of the NFL can drain fun from the game in some instances, and the disappointment of defeat can crush spirits.

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At 6-6 and on their bye week, the Browns have five games left to salvage a season of great expectations. Everyone involved knows they would need to go 5-0 or 4-1 — with ample help from other teams — the rest of the way to make the playoffs.

“I'm going to rest up, get my body right and come back to finish the season strong,” Ward said. “We've just got to take it a game at a time and then see where we are at the end of the year.”

Although the Browns went 11-5 last season to capture a playoff berth for the first time since 2002, Ward didn't quite have the year he envisioned.

Ward thought he was on track toward earning his second career Pro Bowl nod when a strained calf cost him three games coming off a career-high four passes defensed, including an interception, and a quarterback hit that set up a 50-yard interception return for a touchdown by linebacker Sione Takitaki in a 22-17 win over the Philadelphia Eagles on Nov. 22, 2020.

Ward returned from the injury and played in two games before he contracted COVID-19, forcing him to sit out wins over the Pittsburgh Steelers in the regular-season finale and a wild-card playoff game.

“I thought I was definitely having an All Pro type of year,” Ward said. “I thought I was helping my team win and doing my job and making plays. I was definitely having a Pro Bowl type of year, and then once that stuff happened, it was disappointing, but that's life. Things are going to happen. You've just got to find a way to get past it, work through it, so I was still happy about how I responded to that.

“Things happen in life. Everything's not always going to go your way, but I know what type of player I am and what I can bring to this team or any team. Every time I am out there, I just try to showcase that and do what I can to help my team win.”

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Injuries have been a part of every chapter of Ward's NFL story thus far. He missed three games as a rookie with two separate concussions. He sat out four games in 2019 with a hamstring injury. He was shut down for five games with the strained calf and COVID-19 last year.

Ward said he hasn't experienced any lingering effects of COVID-19 this season, yet he has still encountered other obstacles with his health.

He left in the first quarter of a 47-42 loss to the Los Angeles Chargers with a neck injury on Oct. 10, departed in the fourth quarter of a 17-14 win over the Denver Broncos with a left hamstring injury on Oct. 21 and sat out a 15-10 setback against the Steelers with the same hamstring injury on Oct. 31.

Browns assistant defensive backs coach Brandon Lynch commended Ward for pushing through pain to avoid even more missed time this year.

“He's really shown some resilience and toughness,” Lynch said Thursday by phone. “There's a few other games this year that he's really battled to get back, to make sure he was there, be a good teammate and help our team.”

In 11 games this season, Ward has 29 tackles, a half sack, eight passes defensed and three interceptions, including one he returned 99 yards for a touchdown in a 41-16 win over the Cincinnati Bengals on Nov. 7.

Cleveland Browns' Denzel Ward playing like he's a top-five NFL cornerback, according to Pro Football Focus grades

ProFootballFocus.com has Ward ranked fifth among 118 qualifying cornerbacks this season.

It's the highest ranking Ward has received from the website. The next best came in 2018, when he finished 14th among 112 qualifying cornerbacks as a rookie. Ward earned his lone Pro Bowl selection the same season.

“After getting that first one, I definitely want to accomplish that again and get another one,” Ward said. “... I feel that I've been playing and I'm capable of playing at an All Pro and Pro Bowl level whether someone else has put me in there or not.

“I feel good about what I've been able to do, but there's still a lot more that I individually want to accomplish and help this team achieve. There's a lot of work that still has to be done.”

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Ward is a microcosm of the defense. He has gotten hot lately, registering three interceptions in the past four games. He had one of the team's four interceptions against Baltimore Ravens quarterback Lamar Jackson in Sunday night's 16-10 loss at M&T Bank Stadium. While the offense has struggled, the defense has played well in five of the past six games — the exception a 45-7 loss to the New England Patriots on Nov. 14.

It took a few games for Ward to find a groove this season, and there are still plays he wants back. He said immediately after Sunday night's game he should have stuck to Ravens tight end Mark Andrews in coverage on Jackson's remarkable 13-yard touchdown pass in the third quarter.

But Ward, 24, has been crucial to the defense starting to click.

“Denzel, for me, has the length, size, speed and quickness that you look for in a No. 1 corner, but you can’t press and try to make plays,” Browns defensive coordinator Joe Woods said on Nov. 26. “I think earlier in the season, he was trying to do that or his technique or his eye discipline wasn't there. I think now he's starting to settle down, and you're seeing him make some impactful plays in games.”

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Why would Ward press? Woods didn't mention Ward's contract situation as a factor.

“Just wanting to be a playmaker for us,” Woods said. “We have playmakers at all three levels of our defense. You just have to do your job and make the plays you're supposed to make. When they come your way, if you play proper technique, then you'll make those plays.”

Ward, 5-foot-11 and 190 pounds, agreed he has improved as the season has unfolded.

“I don't think I had a bad start,” he said. “If you look at the games that I played, I wasn't allowing many yards or many catches, but I feel I definitely locked in a lot more and kind of executed at an even higher level than earlier in the season. So how my season is going now compared to earlier in the season, I'd definitely say I'm playing at a much higher level.”

Denzel Ward says there haven't been any recent contract extension talks between his camp and the Browns

Ward has developed a bond with Lynch and passing game coordinator/defensive backs coach Jeff Howard. Throughout training camp this past summer, Ward would often spend downtime he had during practices working on his hands and other techniques off to the side with Lynch.

“That something that [Lynch has] helped with a lot,” Ward said. “It's a routine that we've definitely got going on now, getting that extra work in, trying to fine-tune and critique the little details within our game and just trying to find a way every second of the day that we're here at work.”

“He's been a big part and made a big impact on my development here, my progression as a corner and also as a man in life. [He's helped me] on the field working with me and critiquing my techniques and just helping me out on various things on the football side of things, but also off the field and spiritually. I look at him as a great coach.”

Ward revealed in mid-June his agent Tory Dandy had entered contract extension discussions with the Browns.

“In a perfect world, I would definitely want to be a Brown for my entire career,” Ward said June 15.

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Ward said Tuesday there haven't been any more talks recently. He's under contract through the 2022 season because General Manager Andrew Berry exercised the fifth-year option on the player's rookie deal in April for $13.294 million guaranteed.

Berry handles the business of figuring out who to sign long term, though Ward has been playing like a cornerstone as of late.

Count Lynch among those who have been impressed.

“He's a young guy who's put the focus on the work,” Lynch said. “He's been working on his detail and his discipline, and it's showing, especially in the month of November. I think the things that people really don't see that's contributing to it is he's also a really good teammate, he's a studious athlete and he does try to do things the correct way.

“Whenever a young guy is developing, especially his caliber and how elite he is, that whole process of staying the course of development is very important. With all of our focus being on the work, being on the details and discipline, we've been finding a way together.”

Nate Ulrich can be reached at nulrich@thebeaconjournal.com.

Ravens at Browns

Time: 1 p.m., Dec. 12

TV: CBS

This article originally appeared on Akron Beacon Journal: Denzel Ward gets hot with long-term Cleveland Browns future at stake