Sam Howell continues positive development trend against Patriots pressure packages
Breaking down Howell’s performance against the Patriots and how he handled the various pressures that were thrown at him.
With the Commanders falling to 3-5 and trading away both starting defensive ends at the deadline this week, the focus on young quarterback Sam Howell becomes even more intense as the success of this season hinges on his development. Despite that pressure, Howell showed no signs of panic in the Commanders 20-17 victory over the Patriots on Sunday. In fact, he continued to show positive signs of development as he completed 29 of 45 passes for 325 yards, one touchdown and one interception, in what was an interesting test.
Going into the game, the discussion was all about how Howell could handle a defense led by Patriots coach Bill Belichick, who has made many young quarterbacks suffer trying to decipher his disguised coverages, heavy blitzes and varied personnel groups. We knew it was likely that the Patriots would look to blitz Howell given how Howell has struggled with sacks this season and how the offensive line struggled to pick up blitzes a few weeks ago against the Giants. But instead of crumbling under the pressure, Howell showed great maturity and looked like a veteran in dealing with the different things the Patriots threw at him.
This play came early on in the game on the Commanders second drive. Before the snap, the Patriots appear to be in a fairly basic single-high coverage structure with man matchups on the outside. However, just before the snap, the slot corner creeps inside to join the rush while the deep safety rotates across to replace him over the slot. Then the safety from the opposite side of the field sinks back deep to replace the deep safety.
This kind of look can throw off young quarterbacks and cause them to hold onto the ball while they process it. Earlier in the season, Howell may well have done exactly that. But having gained some experience and learned lessons in taking sacks and deciphering blitzes, Howell shows development here. He identifies the slot corner blitzing at the snap and speeds up his process. He shortens his drop and quickly looks to throw over the blitz out to Jahan Dotson in the slot, knowing that deep safety has a lot of ground to make up in order to get to Dotson.
By speeding up his process and shortening his drop, Howell is able to beat the blitz and get the ball out before it can arrive. Not only that, he gets the ball to Dotson early, which gives Dotson a chance to secure the catch and turn up the field to gain additional yards after the catch. Dotson does exactly that, making the safety rotating down from deep miss his tackle and turning a four or five-yard catch into a nine-yard gain.
That type of development in Howell’s game is hugely encouraging and it wasn’t just a one off thing. He had three or four plays where he saw a blitzer coming and adjusted his drop to quickly throw over him and complete a pass, instead of holding onto the ball and taking a sack. Another positive sign of maturity from Howell was how he avoided negative plays. The talk all year has been about Howell holding onto the ball too long and taking far too many sacks. He’s also had a few interceptions (yes there was one in this game too, we’ll get to that) that have come as a result of trying to do too much when a play isn’t there to be made. In this game, he rarely looked to force the issue, instead learning his lesson from earlier in the year and understanding when to move on from a broken play.
On this play, Howell has receiver Byron Pringle isolated to the left of the formation on a go route down the sideline. To his right, he also has tight end Logan Thomas spotting up on a quick hook route with Jamison Crowder wrapping behind it. The intent here is to take the shot if he likes the matchup with Pringle and then progress back to Thomas and Crowder if the shot isn’t there.
At the snap, we can see Howell look to his left and check Pringle, who gets caught on a jam and stumbles. Howell decisively moves on and works back to his right side, but finds both Thomas and Crowder covered. I think earlier in the season, Howell would have panicked in this situation. Either he would have tried to force something and risked an interception or he would have held onto the ball and taken a sack. Here though, he calmly accepts the play is broken, rolls out to his left to buy himself some time and throws the ball away.
Pringle does end up peeling off of his route and coming free right at the end of the play, but I think at that point Howell had already decided to just live to fight another day and throw the ball away. Given how much Howell struggled in similar situations earlier this year, I have no issue with him missing Pringle late there and just accepting to throw it away and move on to the next play. That’s a lesson we’ve all been waiting for Howell to learn and it appears as though he is doing so.
Now, just because Howell is learning to accept plays are broken and throw the ball away to avoid making a broken play into a negative one, doesn’t mean he always looked to throw the ball away when nothing was on. In key situations, like third down, we saw just how good Howell can be as a playmaker working off-script.
Here on third and 10, the Commanders have Pringle and Dotson stacked to the right of the formation. Dotson runs and out-and-up while Pringle releases inside of him before running a corner route. With it being third and 10, you might expect the Patriots to blitz, but instead they decide to keep two safeties deep with man coverage underneath, rushing just the front four. Despite that, center Tyler Larsen struggles to contain defensive tackle Christian Barmore. The Patriots run a stunt up front and with Barmore they manage to generate some pressure inside.
Howell feels that pressure but doesn’t panic. Instead he calmly starts rolling out to his right, breaking the pocket and buying his receivers time to get open down the field. As he rolls out, Pringle spots Howell needing some assistance and smartly breaks off his route. He peels away from his coverage and sneaks back inside, giving Howell an option to throw to. Howell spots him and hits him with a nice throw on the run, which Pringle secures and picks up the first down conversion.
Howell went off-script a few times, especially in third and long situations, but his first option was always looking downfield for an open receiver. However, when he needed to, he used his legs to make plays too.
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