Evaluating Sam Howell’s performance against the Bears
Breaking down the performance of QB Sam Howell in the Commanders loss to the Bears
After the Washington Commanders were convincingly beaten on Thursday night by the Chicago Bears, the focus in Washington was rightly on the failures of a defense that has far too much talent to be having the issues they’re having. However, that poor performance by the defense overshadowed what was actually another positive week from young quarterback Sam Howell.
The offense had a bit of a rough start to the game, which is to be expected with a young quarterback, but Howell never gave up despite the team dropping to a 27-3 deficit at half time. He led a valiant comeback effort in the second half, finishing the game completing 37 of 51 passes for 388 yards, two touchdowns and an interception.
Now at the start of this piece I’ll be upfront and say this isn’t about any sort of moral victory (based on my twitter mentions, you all HATE those…) and I’m also not denying that Howell had some negative plays in this game, some of which I will cover in this post. But overall, I thought Howell’s performance was a positive one that showed some continued improvements in his game.
After the Eagles game last week, I wrote about how Eric Bieniemy got Howell into a rhythm with quick game throws and getting him throwing on the run. Once Howell was in rhythm, Bieniemy opened things up more and we saw Howell make good decisions such as getting to checkdowns efficiently to let his receivers pick up yards after the catch. In general we saw his mental process starting to speed up and he wasn’t staying on reads quite as long. That continued against the Bears.
On this play, we see Howell wanting to work to star receiver Terry McLaurin to his right. McLaurin runs what’s sometimes referred to as a blaze out. He works vertically for about 10 yards before breaking inside to the post. After selling the fake to the post, he then cuts sharply back outside towards the sideline. As Howell gets to the top of his drop, he looks to McLaurin and pauses for a moment to see if McLaurin will get open out of his break. However, his internal clock is already ticking as he’s pausing at the top of his drop.
Earlier in the season, he might have continued to hold at the top of his drop and wait for McLaurin to get open, but here he spots McLaurin run into the defender coming out of his break. As soon as Howell spots that contact, he correctly decides to move on. Now some of you might think that if he just waits for a moment longer, McLaurin does actually get open after the contact, but the point here is the mental process. Quarterback’s can’t expect to get away with sitting at the top of their drop for as long as it takes for their first read to get open. As soon as the read gets muddied by the contact with the defender, Howell has to move on and he does so correctly.
His correct process is rewarded as he comes back across the middle and spots Jamison Crowder breaking inside on his basic cross. Howell does a nice job adjusting his arm angle as he delivers the throw to find Crowder. Notice the veteran move from Crowder that helps him out too. Crowder could just continue to run his route and gain depth, but he knows when he breaks over the middle, the trailing corner is going to look to undercut the throw, so Crowder gives ground and comes back to the ball to protect Howell and the ball from the trailing defender.
This play is a good sign of progress for Howell. Being able to recognize that the clock is ticking and he can’t just stay on his first read forever is an essential lesson to learn and will help significantly with some of the hits and sacks he’s been taking. Being able to recognize that a read is muddied and while the receiver may eventually break open, it’s not worth waiting around to find out is a sign that Howell is learning the lessons he needs to.
Another lesson he is learning is not to force things despite the situation of the game.
Here, the Commanders face a third and 13 situation in their own half, looking to get a drive started while trailing in the game. It would be very easy for a young quarterback to make too much of the situation and feel like he needs to force the ball down the field here. In fact, his first interception against the Bills earlier this year was in a similar third and long situation where he tried to force the ball down the field and ended up getting intercepted.
Here, the Bears drop back into a safe Tampa-2 coverage looking to get their underneath zone defenders to protect the first down markers and the two deep safeties staying on top of anything deeper than that. It becomes immediately obvious after the snap that the defense is in Tampa-2 and Howell knows that this concept isn’t necessarily designed to beat that coverage. He also feels a little bit of pressure up front. So instead of trying to force the ball down the field and risk a turnover, he speeds up his process and quickly hits his checkdown underneath to tight end Logan Thomas.
Just like on the last play, a good mental process is rewarded here. Thomas secures the pass and immediately turns up the field looking to find the first down. He builds up some momentum and then as defenders approach, he dives at full stretch to ensure he reaches the first down marker and moves the chains. It was an incredible effort by Thomas that shows first downs can be picked up by throws short of the marker if the receiver is given a chance to pick up yards after the catch.
These signs of growth are a big positive for Howell. There are obviously still plenty of areas for him to improve on, but each week he has shown us some level of improvement in different parts of his game. This comes naturally from being on the field more and facing more snaps against teams planning specifically to try and stop him. There will still be bumps along the way but he’s showing he can adapt and react to new looks from the defense.
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