NFL Draft film room: Cam Ward, the most talented quarterback in the class

Diving into the Heisman hopeful’s game

The Las Vegas Raiders will be in the market for a quarterback during the 2025 NFL Draft, and one of the Raiders’ top targets will be Cam Ward from the Miami Hurricanes. Granted, the Raiders will likely have to trade up to get Ward as he’s arguably the most talented quarterback in the draft class.

Ward is a two-time transfer who began his college career at FCS Incarnate Word before spending two years at Washington State and heading to the University of Miami this season. He gained notoriety with the Cougars but burst onto the scene this fall as a Heisman Trophy finalist, throwing for 4,313 yards and 39 touchdowns (led FBS) in 13 games.

Adding to those numbers, Pro Football Focus credited the 22-year-old senior with the fifth-most “big-time throws” (28) in the country and at an impressive 5.7 percent rate, sixth-best among Power four quarterbacks (minimum 215 dropbacks).

So, there are plenty of reasons to flip on Ward’s tape and see what he could bring to Las Vegas.

Here are a few good examples of those “big-time throws” mentioned above as Ward tosses a pretty nice deep ball. Not only does he have the arm strength to push the ball down the field, but he also has decent accuracy to drop the ball in the bucket and put it where defenders can’t get it.

While both passes were incompletions, the two deep posts against Cal stand out. Ward threw the ball from about the opposite 40-yard-line and they landed several yards deep in the endzone and on-target both times. He’s capable of throwing the moonballs like a young Russell Wilson used to do.

Also part of the Miami product’s arm strength is his ability to throw with velocity. The ball has a lot of zip coming out of his hands to fit into tight windows and beat zone coverage, as that second clip against Virginia Tech is the best example.

Additionally, Ward has pretty good timing on a lot of these throws. That makes it even more difficult for defenders to make a play on the ball since they’ll have even less time to react as passes buzz by their ears.

The ability to create off-script plays separates Ward from the other quarterbacks in this year’s draft class. He has a decent sense of when the pocket is breaking down in addition to the athleticism to escape. On top of that, he’s good at throwing on the run by maintaining his accuracy and arm strength, and he can throw from different arm slots to get the ball around defenders.

Ward has what I like to call a “school-yard skillset”, meaning he can scramble and make plays out of structure which the clips above show. But the last rep above serves as an example of how that can also be beneficial even when executing the play design.

Miami runs an RPO and Cal has a good counter for it by blitzing the nickel off the edge. So, Ward takes a step or two forward to sell the zone read and keep the linebacker from chasing the tight end while also having the nickel’s attention. Then, he throws a jump pass to the tight end in the flat for the game-winning touchdown.

Building on the section above, Ward isn’t necessarily a dynamic runner who can be used on a bunch of zone reads in the running game. However, he can tuck it and run to hurt a defense with his legs when needed.

In all three of these clips, Ward recognizes man coverage and sees no one is open. So, he hangs in the pocket for a second and waits for the middle of the defense to open up before taking off. That timing plus good speed allows him to either move the chains or find the endzone, making the quarterback a threat with his legs.

Finally, eye manipulation is something Ward is still working on but has shown some progress with this past season.

In the first clip, he opens the corner route against the Cover 3 look from Virginia Tech by staring at and pump faking the flat route. That gets the cornerback at the top of the screen to bite and end up being late to protect the numbers as a deep third defender. Thus, the receiver has space to make the catch and can use his back/body to keep the safety away from the ball.

Against Cal, Ward’s first read is taken away, forcing him to work to the other side of the formation. He exaggerates his eyes by looking toward the sideline which gets the linebacker to widen and vacate the middle of the field. Now the throwing window for the dig route is bigger, so Ward snaps his head to the middle of the field and hits the receiver for the first down.

Putting all of this together, it’s easy to see why many view Ward as the most talented quarterback in this year’s draft class, myself included.