How do you think Cam Ward’s rookie season is going? If you go by the numbers, it’s pretty bleak. Last draft’s No. 1 pick has thrown for 2,210 yards, seven touchdowns, six picks and with a completion rate below 60 percent and a passer rating of 75.7. Your brain tells you that’s a bad quarterback.

However, watch the games, or the tape afterward, and your heart will tell you something different. On the Week 12 Hangover episode of “The Athletic Football Show,” Robert Mays and Derrik Klassen take a hard look at Ward’s rookie campaign with the Tennessee Titans and break down why it’s truly a tale of two seasons.

“I’ve made this joke before. [The box score shows] 147 yards, zero touchdowns, one pick. A completion rate of 55 percent. Then you turn on the tape, and it is just throw after throw after throw. He is playing out of his mind,” Klassen says.

The most recent example of Ward’s brilliance being swallowed by Tennessee’s fog of futility came in Week 12 against the Seahawks, when the rookie delivered a precision strike to journeyman James Proche.

“The Seahawks rotate into a cover two look, and he throws a seam ball to James Proche up the left seam,” Mays recalls. “And he leaves it just far enough to his left away from the backside safety to give Proche a little bit of space to catch that ball. And everything about it, the arm angle, the placement, the velocity, the decision, the aggressiveness, it checks every single box that you want it to when you’re trying to figure out how you want your quarterback to play.”

Ward, who became the third consecutive No. 1 pick to lose his coach in his rookie year, had a handful of throws like that in the game. His stat line, while better than usual, was unremarkable: 28-for-42, 256 yards and a touchdown. But it was once again a performance littered with eye-popping throws; the kind that indicate this is a wildly talented player saddled with an unusable team, not the other way around.

“I already think that he’s a more dynamic, creative thrower than Dak Prescott has ever been in his entire career. Dak Prescott does every little thing right as a quarterback, and Cam Ward certainly doesn’t do every little thing right right now,” Mays says. “But when it comes to pure arm talent and creativity, he is bringing a ton of stuff to the table.

“This is a heinous situation. It doesn’t get much worse when it comes to what Cam Ward has been dropped into this year.”

In addition to losing his coach and having a first-year general manager, Ward has a rough offensive line and virtually no one to throw to. Calvin Ridley has been injured much of the season, meaning the Titans’ top three receivers are fourth-round rookies Elic Ayomanor and Chimere Dike, along with 29-year-old journeyman Van Jefferson. Behind them is a parade of little-known players who only make Ward’s life more challenging.

“That sequence I talked about where he hits that seam ball on that third-and-9, on the same drive, they have a fourth-and-1. He throws a rail route to Gunnar Helm down the left sideline that hits Gunnar Helm in the hands. He drops it,” Mays says, also recalling a drop by Dike earlier in the game. “So if you’re sitting there being like, ‘Well, why aren’t the numbers better and why aren’t they scoring more points if this quarterback is so good?’ There are plenty of examples of this in every single game as to why it’s happening.”

The episode breaks down not only the big throws Ward routinely makes, but the quiet parts of his game that are already well beyond what they should be for a guy who has only played 10 games. Listen now to hear the case for Cam Ward’s rookie season being a success, and next time you watch, you can let your head and heart have the debate.