Tennessee Titans quarterback Cam Ward has heard plenty of outside chatter about his footwork this season, so I wanted his take on it directly.

At his regularly-scheduled Wednesday availability, I asked him a deliberately open-ended question: What do you make of your footwork right now? On this week’s film review I did of the Browns game, footwork came up again and again. Specifically, the repeatability of his process in the pocket from a mechanics and footwork standpoint. So I wanted to hear how Ward sees it.

What Cam Ward said about his footwork

Ward was definitive in his answer.

“I think I’m very good at the footwork right now. I’ve grown in that aspect from not only last year, but previous years. But that’s something that’s going to continue to get better throughout my career. It’s something that’s not going to change overnight. It’s something that’s never going to be perfected at the end of the day because stuff happens in the game that you can’t predict in practices.” It’s more just continue to stay balanced to staying flat through my throws.”

Paul Kuharsky and I then went back and forth with him on specific plays. First up was the Daniel Bellinger overthrow on third down during the final offensive drive of the game, when Ward airmailed what should have been a touchdown:

“I think it’s pretty good. I think I just got too happy with the throw. I think I could just do it with more air instead of trying to drive it to him.”

Next, I asked about his interception on a deep in-breaking route intended for Ayomanor. Ward chalked that one up to a bad ball rather than a footwork issue. Finally, I asked how often, when he watches his own misses on tape, he points to footwork versus something else as the culprit. He said it depends, but he believes his footwork is generally good. He was not ambiguous on that front whatsoever.

Why the tape tells a different story

Listen… I’m not a quarterback and never have been. I wasn’t even the kid you picked to play all-time quarterback at recess. But I’m going to have to respectfully disagree with Ward here!

It’s just not what I’m seeing. More importantly, it doesn’t line up with what his coaches seem to be seeing. His quarterbacks coach, his offensive coordinator, his head coach, and even multiple unnamed league sources in a Kuharsky article a few weeks ago; they’ve all repeatedly brought it up. Just about everyone watching Ward closely this season has pointed to footwork that still isn’t up to snuff. Frankly, the lack of progress since his first year has been a letdown.

Ward even told us at his final press conference of last season, when he came to the podium wearing a sling after hurting his shoulder, that he wouldn’t get behind on his offseason because of how much footwork work he was going to be focused on anyways.

But we aren’t seeing it show up in games very often. At least, we aren’t. Ward apparently is!

My colleague Austin Stanley compared it to the summer Tim Tebow spent rebuilding his throwing motion, which ended with the same old results once real games started. Stanley argued footwork should be easier to change than a throwing motion, but the muscle memory still has to be built, and it hasn’t been. He tied the Bellinger miss back to Ward playing too sped up as far back as the first preseason game. Ward saw his tight end open, got excited, and wasn’t in a ready-to-throw stance. As Stanley put it, Ward getting happy with the throw is exactly why the footwork wasn’t fine.

This presser was unfortunately a big unforced error. Ward is right about one thing: footwork won’t change overnight, and in-game instincts will always try to take back over. The problem is, those instincts are exactly what he still needs to improve on, yet he is adamant that it’s in a better spot than the rest of us are seeing.