Evaluating Sam Howell against the Ravens
Breaking down how QB Sam Howell performed in the Commanders second preseason game
Quarterback Sam Howell had another impressive outing during the Washington Commanders second preseason game. Granted, the Ravens weren’t playing the majority of their starting defense so that context is important, but Howell still completed 19 of 25 passes for 188 yards and two touchdowns. While the Ravens might not have been playing their starters, they still gave Howell some different looks to think about and he showed a lot of positive processes that suggests the Commanders were right to name him their starting quarterback this season.
While it was a positive performance overall, Howell did start off with a rough play.
On this play, the Ravens are using a simulated pressure to the right side of the Commanders’ offensive line. They blitz the linebacker over the slot to the right and compensate for him by dropping the defensive end on the other side of the line back into coverage. I think Sam Howell probably knows this rush is coming because the linebacker would otherwise be left on a receiver in the slot and the safety over the top is quite wide in his alignment, suggesting he’s covering the slot.
Once he snaps the ball, Howell immediately looks to his right, wanting to throw over the blitzing linebacker to the out route from the slot. As he drops back to pass though, he spots the safety working down from deep and driving on the slot receiver, which causes him to hesitate from making that throw. Now I think had he trusted the read and threw immediately, he’d have hit the slot receiver before the safety could get there, but I don’t hate him being a little bit cautious there, especially early in the game.
Where he makes a mistake is panicking and scrambling from a clean pocket. He feels a slight bit of pressure coming from that rushing linebacker and immediately starts to take off running to his right, when really he didn’t need to. He had time to reset in the pocket and work back across the middle, where he almost certainly had a throw over the middle for a nice gain. But instead, he anticipates the pressure too much and begins to take off scrambling. When he rolls right, he has no other options to that side as the slot receiver's out route was already taken away by the safety and the outside receiver was running a clearing vertical route down the sideline. Howell attempts to work back to his left but is met by the trailing defenders and eventually brought down for a bad sack.
That sack is on Howell, like his sack last week. Howell quickly took blame for the sack after the game and admitted he was trying to do too much early in the game. However, credit to Howell for quickly forgetting about that mistake and moving on. Having put his team in a hole by taking that sack and facing third and 15, Howell quickly made up for it on the next play.
Here is the very next snap of the game. On third and 15, the Commanders attempt to run a variation of dagger to the left, with the slot receiver running a deep corner route and the outside receiver running a deep dig underneath it. On the right side, tight end Cole Turner is isolated one-on-one and runs a deep curl. Off the snap, Howell looks to his right and wants to work the dagger concept. The slot receiver does force the safety deep, creating space behind him for the deep dig to run into. However, the Ravens have an underneath zone defender that does a nice job gaining depth and sinking underneath where the dig route is trying to work.
I think Howell considers taking the deeper shot to the corner route with the safety not quite turning to run quickly, but with that being a much more challenging throw down the field from the far hashmark, Howell moves on and progresses on to Turner on the right side of the field. He’s maybe a fraction of a second late to come back to Turner, with Turner already out of his break as Howell makes his throw, but it is marginal. Fortunately, Howell has the arm to drive the ball down the field to Turner and Turner does a good job continuing to come back towards the ball to protect it from the trailing defender. Turner secures the catch at the first down marker and picks up the conversion.
It’s great to see Howell having the ability to not let mistakes linger. Many young quarterbacks around the league would have been too frustrated from the mistake that led to the sack on the previous play to make up for it on the next. Some would have tried to force the ball over the middle or down the field and tried to do too much to make up for it. Howell showed great poise in forgetting about the previous play and moving onto the next one, taking it as it comes and reading it out properly.
Another thing Howell has been credited for a lot this offseason has been his ability to self-correct. Ron Rivera and Eric Bieniemy have both mentioned multiple times how they like that Howell can quickly recognize when he makes a mistake and correct it himself without having to be told by the coaches. That was evident in this game. That sack we’ve already seen was a case of Howell not necessarily trusting his protection up front and scrambling from a pocket that wasn’t that bad. As the game progressed though, he showed a willingness to stay in the pocket and trust his protection to give him time, even in key situations.
This time we see the Commanders face a fourth and short situation. They run a simple shallow cross concept with Terry McLaurin running the shallow cross from left to right and Jahan Dotson running a deep hook over the middle. The Ravens line up with two linebackers in the A gaps, showing a potentially big blitz, but both actually drop into coverage leaving just a four-man rush. As Howell snaps the ball, he checks the safety rotation and then looks to work to the shallow cross. However, McLaurin gets shoved as he releases across the middle and that causes him to stumble over.
Howell doesn’t panic like he did on the sack. He stays calm in the pocket and progresses onto Dotson spotting up over the middle. As he looks to Dotson, he feels his right tackle being driven back towards him. Again, he learns from the sack play previously and calmly slides to his left, stepping up in the pocket slightly to buy some time and space while trusting his tackle to recover the block. Howell then does a fantastic job leading Dotson away from coverage with his throw. Dotson’s route requires him to sit in the middle of the field, but the Ravens have a zone defender sitting underneath him taking away that throw. Some young quarterbacks would assume that throw is then unavailable, but Howell knows he can lead Dotson back outside away from the coverage with his throw.
He gets a bit fortunate with his throw as it does get tipped by a defender at the line of scrimmage, but it’s still able to get to Dotson who does a terrific job identifying where Howell wants him to go and then adjusting to the tipped pass. Dotson secures the ball and picks up the first down conversion. While it was slightly fortunate to still get there, Howell deserved the good fortune for trusting his protection and showing a good process of stepping up in the pocket and leading his receiver away from coverage with the throw.
Howell continued this poise in the pocket throughout the game.
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