Before Eagles WR Greg Ward caught a game-winning TD, he outdueled Patrick Mahomes and Lamar Jackson as a QB

For those who’ve known Greg Ward since he started playing football in Tyler, Texas, the surprise isn’t that he was involved in a game-winning touchdown on Sunday. It’s that he was the receiver, not the quarterback.

Philadelphia knows Ward only as a wide receiver, where he’s provided a jolt to the Eagles with 18 catches in the past four games, including a 4-yard, go-ahead touchdown with 26 seconds remaining in the win over Washington. That’s been his position since the Eagles signed him after the 2017 draft, and throughout the 15 subsequent Ward transactions made by the team in the 30 months since. That’s the position he played in the now-defunct Alliance of American Football.

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But if you watched Ward at John Tyler High School outduel last season’s NFL MVP Patrick Mahomes, he’s not a receiver. And if you watched Ward star at the University of Houston and outplay this season’s potential MVP Lamar Jackson, he’s not a receiver. He’s the one throwing touchdowns or running for touchdowns, not catching them.

“If you don’t think he can throw it,” said Ricklan Holmes, Ward’s coach at John Tyler, “call Lamar Jackson and ask him.”

Or just check Mahomes’ social media. Mahomes quote-tweeted Ward’s game-winning touchdown, and wrote: “That’s my guy man! Congrats! But (I’m) still mad he beat me for the district championship in high school.”

That’s my guy man! Congrats! But im still mad he beat me for the district championship in high school😂😂 #bEastTexas

— Patrick Mahomes II (@PatrickMahomes) December 16, 2019

It was a reference to the 2012 Texas District 16-Class 4A championship game in which Ward helped lead a comeback, erasing a 24-point deficit to beat Mahomes and Whitehouse High School.

“Hey, man, you’re going to have to take over to win this football game,” Holmes recalled telling Ward at the time.

“I got you, coach,” Ward responded.

“The rest is history,” Holmes said by phone this week.

Ward finished the game 20 of 24 for 323 yards and four touchdowns. He rushed for 162 yards and a touchdown. John Tyler advanced all the way to the state semifinals, the second consecutive year Ward’s team made it that deep in the playoffs. But when asked if that was Ward’s best high school game, Holmes let out a chuckle.

“We could fill all day if we went through all the games Greg played the way he just played for Philadelphia,” Holmes said.

Still, Ward wasn’t a coveted quarterback prospect coming out of high school. The 5-foot-10, 165-pounder was considered an “athlete” more than a quarterback. No Big 12 schools pursued him, according to Sports Illustrated. He went to Houston, but needed to start his career as a wide receiver. (He was a wide receiver during his first two years of high school, too.)

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Ward didn’t became the starting quarterback at Houston until midway through his sophomore season in 2014, but when now-Texas coach Tom Herman took the Houston job the next year, Ward flourished. He was one of two players from 2015-16 to top 6,000 passing yards and 1,500 rushing yards; Deshaun Watson was the other.

“He was just so dynamic,” Herman said by phone. “To be able to run and make the plays he was able to do, and yet see the field mentally and make all the throws that he made — it’s very, very unique to find a guy that’s as elite with both of those things as a passer, and a guy that’s managing a game as well as a guy that can take a game over with his legs.”

Ward and Houston opened the 2016 season with a win over No. 3 Oklahoma, which was led by eventual Heisman Trophy winner and No. 1 pick Baker Mayfield. That November, they defeated No. 3 Louisville, with Jackson one month away from winning the Heisman, as Ward threw for 233 yards and two touchdowns.

Ward was listed at 5-foot-11 and 185 pounds at Houston; that’s the same height and five pounds fewer than his official measurements for the Eagles. Despite his college production and winning 27 of 32 games he started as the Cougars quarterback, Ward was expected to make the switch to wide receiver in the NFL. That’s where he worked at the 2017 scouting combine, and the Eagles wanted him as a wideout. Offensive coordinator Mike Groh, then the Eagles wide receiver coach, said the team didn’t have to make as much of a projection thanks to Ward’s wide receiver background.

Ward, 24, has been on coach Doug Pederson’s radar since he signed as an undrafted free agent in May 2017. During the 2018 offseason, Ward was one of the first names Pederson mentioned in the spring when identifying players who could take a leap. (He didn’t make the team.) Pederson joked on Sunday that Ward is his wife’s favorite player. But after Ward first joined the Eagles, they used 13 wide receivers in games before turning to him. That group ranged from players such as Alshon Jeffery and Nelson Agholor to the brief stints of Markus Wheaton and Kamar Aiken. The Eagles signed Jordan Matthews twice before Ward stuck with the team. Asked before this season about Ward’s exclusion from the initial 53-man roster, general manager Howie Roseman said the now-starter had “done a tremendous job” and the Eagles “don’t have an answer about what (more) he could have done” other than their need to weigh other positions and priorities.

“I think on the inside, we know the type of player that Greg Ward is, because we’ve seen it day-in and day-out,” Pederson said on Monday. “It’s a little bit of a tricky situation, because as you’re trying to construct your roster for each game, he was on practice squad to start the year and you’re trying to maybe — “Ah, is this the week that we can get him up?” And then there might be an injury in the game that we have to make a move and bring somebody else in a spot, maybe on the defensive side or the offensive side or whatever it is, and it just didn’t work out until here in the last three, four games. We’re excited that (we) obviously had a chance to bring him up. We know the type of player he is, and he’s proven that on the field.”

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Ward’s father, Greg Ward Sr., said that the past two-plus years have been “unsettling,” waiting for his son to get a chance. He’s a father, not an objective third-party observer, but he thinks his son could have played quarterback in the pros. The Wards taught their son to “crawl before you walk.” When Ward was on practice squad, when the Eagles ping-ponged him between the roster and unemployment, Ward Sr. never thought it was time to consider Plan B. Whether it was with the Eagles or another team, Ward was convinced he would make it in the NFL.

“He believes in what he does,” Ward Sr. said by phone. “He’s not a quitter. I didn’t raise him to be a quitter. He’s always been the underdog. He’s not the guy people thought by looking at him, but when he began to play, he changed people’s minds.”

The idea of who should play quarterback has evolved, too. The 6-foot-1 Mayfield and 5-foot-10 Kyler Murray were No. 1 draft picks the past two years. With new offensive ideas funneling up from high school to college to the NFL, coaches have been more willing to buck convention. Ward’s future might still have been as an NFL wide receiver even if he played college quarterback today. But maybe a coach would have been compelled to try to recapture the magic from Houston.

“You never want to play the ‘what-if’ game, but it is nice to see the NFL embracing these guys that didn’t fit their prototypical mode five years ago,” Herman said. “We thought he was an excellent quarterback for us. He won a lot of big ball games against some really good opponents — Florida State, Louisville, Oklahoma.”

Ward didn’t just flourish at quarterback at Houston; he learned how to act like the quarterback, too. Holmes disputes the idea that Ward is quiet, saying that he was always joking with his friends. But Ward was raised to be a “yes sir, no sir,” faithful kid who tended to let his actions speak volumes. His father used to tell him: “Get the job done. You don’t have to be noticed.”

Herman saw Ward as the face of the program. His teammates needed to hear from him. The public needed to know him.

“Tom Herman told him he had to speak up,” Ward Sr. said. “He had to be the leader of the team. He’s the quarterback. Greg is the type of player that he can talk to you if he needs to, but he’d rather let his game do the talking.”

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Herman added that it could be a challenge for a down-the-depth-chart NFL wide receiver to exude leadership qualities, but given more playing time and production, “everybody (with the Eagles) will see what kind of a leader he is.”

Ward accepted going from the face of an undefeated college program who was once on the cover of Sports Illustrated to the bottom rung of the NFL. There are success stories of college quarterbacks who’ve made the transition to wide receiver — Julian Edelman is the reigning Super Bowl MVP — but also plenty of examples of former quarterbacks who couldn’t excel after a position change.

Groh noted how Ward experienced “tremendous success at quarterback” and “put in a ton of time, a ton of work” to become a wide receiver. Ward’s teammates, who practiced with him daily, have been impressed since he first joined the Eagles. It was, as Ward put it, just a matter of time — even if nearly three seasons seems too long of a wait.

“To see what he’s done at the next level compared to what he did in college compared to what he did in high school, it’s all the same,” Holmes said. “Proving all the doubters wrong that you have to be a certain height, you have to be a certain weight, you have to be a certain speed. Greg is a performer. He’s a great football player.”

Ward’s quarterbacking days are behind him. He’s been a full-time wide receiver for three seasons. The experience at quarterback helps his route-running and connection with Carson Wentz; it’s given Ward an understanding of the importance of precise timing.

But whenever the Eagles have played a mobile quarterback, Ward has gone behind center on the scout team. And when Ward Sr. and Holmes gushed about Ward by telephone this week, they both said the success of the past few weeks could have happened with Ward at quarterback.

“I’ll put it like this: If he switched to quarterback now, he could still play it,” Holmes said.

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Pederson called the Philly Special in the Super Bowl. He designed a similar trick play with Agholor attempting a pass last season. And if the Eagles coach is seeking a candidate to step into that role on Sunday against the Dallas Cowboys, he won’t need to look far.

“I think it’s going to be a touchdown play,” Holmes said. “Because I know he can still sling it.”

(Top photo: Thomas B. Shea / Getty Images)