Howell continues to show promise despite Commanders loss to Cowboys
Breaking down Sam Howell's performance in the Commanders loss to the Cowboys on Thanksgiving
The Washington Commanders fell to 4-8 on the season after another incredibly disappointing loss to the Dallas Cowboys on Thursday. It’s been clear for a while now that the main focus of this season is the development of young quarterback Sam Howell and finding out if he can be the franchise quarterback going forward or if a new regime will need to start over there too. With it becoming increasingly apparent that Ron Rivera’s time in Washington is limited, the focus from now until the end of the season will be even stronger on Howell’s development.
Against the Cowboys, Howell completed 28 of 44 passing attempts for 300 yards with an interception. He also scored a touchdown that he ran in himself. Those stats aren’t exactly anything to brag about but I don’t think they provide the correct context for this performance. Howell had a lot put on his shoulders on a short week to try and deal with the pass rush of the Cowboys. Early on, he was having to use his legs a lot to avoid the rush and extend plays in order to find an open receiver.
This clip shows two examples of Howell scrambling early in the game. The first play of the clip is a shallow cross concept we’ve seen a fair few times from Washington this season. Terry McLaurin is isolated to the left of the formation and runs a shallow cross. Tight end Logan Thomas runs a hook route over the middle designed to create traffic for McLaurin’s crosser. On the outside to the right, Howell also has a post and wheel combination.
At the snap of the ball, the Cowboys bail out into a Tampa-2 coverage and generate some nice pressure up front with a stunt. Howell has enough time to sit in the pocket and throw the shallow cross in the right situation, but with the Cowboys playing zone instead of man, that route isn’t open. The pressure then arrives, but Howell knows if he can buy some time, McLaurin can clear the underneath zone defender while the flat defender will be occupied up the sideline by the wheel route. So Howell takes off running to his right to avoid the pressure and extend the play. That buys McLaurin enough time to clear the underneath zone defender and Howell finds him for a nice gain.
On the second play of the clip, we see much more immediate pressure from the Cowboys. Dallas lines up star pass rusher Micah Parsons in the A gap between center Tyler Larsen and left guard Chris Paul. This has been a weakness that teams have attacked since the pair took over from Nick Gates and Saahdiq Charles. Both Larsen and Paul appear to leave Parsons for the other to pick up, which allows Parsons to burst through them both. Howell is forced to roll out immediately and does a great job staying composed with Parsons chasing him, finding Curtis Samuel on his crossing route after rolling out to his right.
After a bumpy start with having to use his legs quite a bit, the offense settled down a bit and started to find a rhythm. Howell, like he has for most of the season, looked comfortable with the various quick game concepts the Commanders call each game.
Here are two examples of Howell finding first downs with quick game concepts. The first is a concept the Andy Reid coaching tree likes to call Missile. The concept calls for three receivers on one side of the field, with the inside receiver running a shallow cross designed to drag coverage inside with him and open things up for the slant from the slot. The outside receiver then runs what’s called a pirate or under route behind the slant. You can see Howell processing information quickly here, working inside to out as he progresses from the slot slant out to Dotson on the perimeter. He does so efficiently and gets the ball to Dotson for a first down.
On the second play of the clip, the Commanders run a twist on their normal slant-flat combination. Instead of just two receivers executing a slant flat, they have three receivers on the same side of the field. The two outside receivers, McLaurin and Dotson, both run slants while the inside receiver runs out to the flat. In the west coast offense, a slant-flat combination is typically called Dragon, while double slants are known as Lion. So when you combine Dragon and Lion, you get what the Reid coaching tree calls Monster. The Cowboys sink into Tampa-2 coverage, but the slot defender and the outside corner appear to play man. Howell looks outside at the snap and reads man, so fires the slant to McLaurin for another first down.
On the few times Howell was given time in the pocket in the first half, he showed he wasn’t panicking about the pressure he had already been under. Many young quarterbacks would start to anticipate pressure and speed up their internal clock, often resulting in them forcing throws out quickly when actually they have time to work through a progression. Now there was perhaps a bit of that late on from Howell, especially when the team was down by multiple scores in the fourth quarter, but when the game was still close in the first half and even into the third quarter, Howell did a nice job staying calm and working his progression when he had time to do so.
On this play we see a mirrored concept from the Commanders. The receivers on the outside both align inside the numbers with a tight split. They both run fade routes down the sideline, using their tight split to give them space to run outside. Meanwhile, the two tight ends on either side of the formation both run stick routes. The idea for Howell here is to pick a side and throw the stick route, but if he gets the right look he can take the shot down the sideline. Off the snap, we can see Howell picks his right side. He looks outside to peek at Dotson’s route but the corner gets a strong jam to force Dotson wider and prevent him from getting a clean release.
That tells Howell to move back inside and find the stick route. As he progresses to the stick route to John Bates, he finds Micah Parsons dropping into coverage and taking away that option. Now a lot of young quarterbacks might have felt their internal clock going off here because of the amount of pressure the Cowboys had been getting before this play, but Howell stays calm. Instead of panicking and scrambling after his first few reads weren’t there, Howell trusts his protection and works to his third read, going across to his left and finding Logan Thomas in space. We then see that quick release Howell is known for and Thomas secures the pass before turning up the field and picking up a first down.
It’s important that the quarterback doesn’t let the past plays impact his process on the current one. We know Howell is someone that doesn’t get rattled easily and is able to quickly move on from the previous play regardless of the result. He’s on track to be sacked a record number of times this year, granted a good chunk of those are his own fault, but despite that he isn’t a panicking mess in the pocket. In fact, he’s improving in the pocket and showed the ability to climb in the pocket to avoid the rush a few times in this game.
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