The San Francisco 49ers unsurprisingly dominate the All-Pro team put together by ESPN ahead of the final week of the regular season.

Six players were named as All-Pros by Bill Barnwell. Christian McCaffrey, George Kittle and Trent Williams got the nod as first-teamers on offense, while Fred Warner was the lone defensive player to make the cut. Quarterback Brock Purdy and wide receiver Brandon Aiyuk were picked as second-teamers by Barnwell, who based his lineup on 11 personnel, meaning there was no spot for fullback Kyle Juszczyk.

But a substantially bigger snub than Juszczyk is that of cornerback Charvarius Ward, who wasn't even named as a second-teamer despite an outstanding season in which he has established himself as a true lockdown corner.

Ward's surprising omission

With the slot corner position included on Barnwell's defense, Ward does not feature among the six corners he named to his team.

Focusing on outside corner, which is where Ward plays the vast majority of snaps, his former Kansas City Chiefs teammate L'Jarius Sneed and Denzel Ward are the first-teamers, with Jaylon Johnson and Sauce Gardner making the second team.

Sneed and Johnson have extremely strong cases. Sneed has done an excellent job shadowing receivers and has a passer rating allowed of just 55.9, the fifth-best in the NFL among all corners with at least 200 coverage snaps. Johnson leads the NFL in that regard, giving up a passer rating of only 33.3.

Ward trails them both with a still extremely impressive 56.8, but his performance in that regard is vastly superior to Denzel Ward (77.0) and Gardner (78.0), neither of whom can come close to matching the 49ers star's on-ball production. 

Denzel Ward has 11 pass breakups and Gardner has 10, their combined tally of 21 trailing Ward's league-leading 23.

In terms of interceptions, it is the 49ers defender who has the edge over all four of Barnwell's All-Pros at outside corner. He has five picks, Johnson has four, Sneed and Denzel Ward have two apiece and Gardner does not have an interception to his name in 2023.

A huge target share

On top of that, only Sneed can claim to have been targeted anywhere near as often as Ward, who has the third-highest PFF coverage grade, a top six passer rating allowed and outstanding production despite being targeted 90 times, the 10th-most in the NFL. Sneed has been targeted on 81 occasions.

There is an argument to be made that the comparative lack of targets for the likes of Denzel Ward, Gardner and Johnson is a testament to their lockdown coverage.

Still, none of the players picked ahead of Ward tick the same number of boxes as the 49ers' shutdown defender, who has performed tremendously in coverage, consistently made plays on the ball and shone in some huge spots for San Francisco.

When the official All-Pro team is released, it's sure to be brimming with 49ers, and Ward absolutely deserves to be among them.

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