Breaking down all 9 sack given up by the Commanders vs the Bills

Evaluating what went wrong for the Commanders on all 9 of the sacks that the Bills' defense managed on Sam Howell

One of the worrying trends regarding Sam Howell and the Washington Commanders offense so far this season has been the number of sacks Howell is taking. Through three games, Howell has now been sacked 19 teams, which is obviously far too much. He was sacked six times in the opener against Arizona, which prompted me to break down each sack and look at what went wrong. Against the Bills this week, Howell was sacked nine times, so I figured I would look at each sack and break it down. 

Now right at the start I will state again that sacks aren’t necessarily a stat that accurately reflects the play of the offensive line. As you’ll see in this post and if you read the breakdown of the sacks back in week one, sacks can often reflect more on the play of the quarterback than the offensive line. Each sack has its own context and that is important. I’ve seen far too many people jumping to blaming the offensive line when it’s not necessarily the offensive line’s fault.

With that being said, let’s get into the sacks. 

Sack 1

Situation: First and 10 at Buffalo 25, 6:13 remaining in the first quarter.

After a strong start to the opening drive, the Commanders find themselves just outside the red zone. Eric Bieniemy calls for an interesting concept. The offense looks to overload one side of the formation with four of the five eligible receivers all working on the right side of the formation at the snap. Receiver Dyami Brown stacks behind fellow receiver Curtis Samuel to the left of the formation, but goes in motion to the right side of the formation at the snap. The ball is snapped just as he approaches the quarterback and Brown continues out to the flat as a checkdown option. 

Meanwhile, Samuel and Jahan Dotson both run deep curl routes designed to grab the attention of any deep safeties and free up the other routes being run. The hope is that one of tight end Cole Turner on his deep over route or running back Antonio Gibson on his wheel route will then run free down the field for a potential touchdown. However, the Cardinals defense picks up this route combination just about perfectly. Samuel gets matched man-to-man on his route on the back side while Dotson’s route gets passed off from the cornerback to the safety. That enables the cornerback to peel off and work back outside, where he can stay on top of Gibson’s wheel route. The linebacker inside matches Turner’s deep over route and the Bills still have a safety deep over the top of it too. 

This means that four of Howell’s five eligible receivers are well covered on the play. It’s unfortunate, but it happens sometimes. The defense can make the right call at the right time and a defense as experienced as this Bills unit are superb at communicating and passing off routes to each other. In this situation, the only real option for Howell is to take the checkdown to Dyami Brown in the flat. You can see Howell considers this after standing at the top of his drop for a beat or two. He opens his body towards the sideline and looks to get himself lined up to Brown to check it down. He should really just pull the trigger and move onto the next play, but he spots the flat defender on the outside peeling off Gibson’s wheel route and being a potential threat to Brown’s route. 

It’s unlikely the defender would have made a play on the ball had Howell made the throw as soon as he aligned that way, but he probably would have been well positioned to restrict Brown to a minimal gain. The hesitation from Howell buys the defensive line an extra second to get home and they bring him down for the sack. 

Conclusion: This one isn’t fully on Howell, but Howell could have prevented it. The protection held up long enough for Howell to deliver a throw had any of his first four options been open. That’s about as good as you can ask or expect from the offensive line. The coverage did a great job matching routes and taking them away from Howell. That isn’t on Howell either, but he could have still prevented the sack by not hesitating and taking the checkdown. Sure, it could well have resulted in Brown being tackled for a loss, but Brown could also have made the defender miss and picked up a positive gain. Alternatively, Howell could have just thrown the ball way over Brown’s head and moved onto the next play. To me, this was more a sack due to good coverage, but Howell could easily have prevented it too. 

Sack 2

Situation: Second and 18 at Buffalo 33, 4:39 remaining in the first quarter.

This sack is much easier to explain. It’s just an RPO (run-pass option) gone wrong. On this play, Howell has the option to either hand the ball off on a designed run or pull the ball and throw a quick out to Jahan Dotson. At the snap, Howell opts to pull the ball and throw, but this is a mistake. The cornerback covering Dotson takes a clear and deliberate step outside to play with outside leverage and take away any out-breaking route. As Howell begins his throwing motion, he realizes that the corner is in a perfect spot to jump the route, so he wisely decides against throwing the ball.

That then leaves Howell with the ball in his hand and nobody to throw to because the rest of the play is designed to be a run play. Howell attempts to follow the running back path and salvage something from the play, but he ends up being tackled short of the line of scrimmage for a second sack in as many plays. 

Conclusion: This one is clearly on Howell. If he pulls the ball to throw it on the RPO, he has to be sure of his read and get the ball out instantly. The line aren’t blocking for a pass, they’re run blocking and the running concept called is designed to be run at a certain pace, which Howell can’t recover if he doesn’t make the throw. He made a similar mistake for one of the sacks against the Cardinals too. In future, he’s gotta just throw that ball away and over the head of the receiver if he makes this mistake again.

Sack 3

Situation: Third and nine at Washington 21, 1:45 remaining in the first quarter.

This was one of the more interesting plays that the Bills used in this game. Buffalo typically used simulated pressures or sometimes rushed five, but here they rushed six and played man coverage behind it. In theory, the Commanders had six blockers with the five offensive lineman and the running back staying in to protect too, but the scheme wasn’t drawn up to block the type of blitz the Bills called. 

The Bills sent both linebackers, but one looped around the other. The linebacker to the left of the offensive line blitzed up the middle and I believe the Commanders were anticipating that. You can see from the end zone angle that Sam Howell even points to that linebacker. Running back Antonio Gibson steps up at the snap and instantly looks to block that linebacker, so I believe Washington was prepared for him blitzing. However, I don’t think they were expecting the other linebacker to also blitz while looping around the first linebacker. Left guard Saahdiq Charles and center Nick Gates work in combination to pick up the defensive tackle so that Gibson is left blocking the linebacker. But with two offensive lineman blocking one defensive tackle, that means the Commanders have nobody free to block the second blitzing linebacker. 

That second linebacker comes looping around the other linebacker and goes untouched as he works his way into the backfield to chase down Howell. The other disappointing thing here from the Commanders perspective is that the Bills were able to play man coverage behind this blitz and nobody was able to win their matchup quickly enough for Howell to find them. With the talent Washington has at receiver, you would expect at least one if not two receivers to win quickly and make themselves available, especially on third down. But with a free rusher and nobody open, Howell attempts to scramble and ends up getting sacked.

Conclusion: This is one of those plays that Eric Bieniemy talks about when he keeps talking about everything being the first time Sam Howell is seeing it. This is likely the first time Howell saw that blitz. In theory, had Howell been more experienced and seen this blitz before, he could have adjusted the protection to get that second linebacker picked up and bought his receivers more time to win their one-on-ones. He could have also adjusted a route or two in order to give himself a quick hitter over the middle. But without having that experience, it’s hard to be overly critical of him here.