Sam Howell impresses in NFL debut
Breaking down the performance of rookie QB Sam Howell in his first NFL start.
Rookie quarterback Sam Howell had an impressive debut performance as the Commanders closed out the season with a 26-6 victory over the Dallas Cowboys. Howell completed 11 of 19 passes for 169 yards with a touchdown and an interception, while also running five times for 35 yards and a touchdown. It wasn’t necessarily a performance that would blow you away, but it was a strong outing considering it was his first NFL start.
Let’s take a closer look at that performance, starting with the positives.
Positives
Coming into the game, one of the things I highlighted as signs of development from Howell was his footwork. In preseason, he struggled to tie his feet to his reads which caused him to be out of sync with his receivers. But his first few throws against the Cowboys showed he had clearly been working on that aspect and it had come a long way since the preseason.
On Howell’s first pass of the game, the Commanders align in a three by one formation with tight end Logan Thomas isolated to the right and all three wide receivers on the left. Thomas and running back Johnathan Williams execute a corner-flat concept while McLaurin runs a shallow cross as the next progression for Howell. As he drops back, Howell looks to his right and gets his feet aligned with the corner route to Thomas. However, he spots the defender covering Thomas taking outside leverage which effectively kills his route. He also spots the defender working to the flat to cover Williams.
So Howell progresses back inside to McLaurin. You can see Howell adjust his feet as he hitches to get himself aligned with McLaurin and then quickly gets the ball out with an accurate pass that allows McLaurin to make the catch in stride. McLaurin then turns up the field and runs in for a touchdown.
It wasn’t just a one time thing from Howell either. On the next series, we saw similar footwork from Howell.
This time, Howell and the Commanders face a third and short situation. Scott Turner calls his favorite short yardage pass concept, mesh. Howell initially starts by reading the running back on his wheel route out of the backfield. However, the Cowboys get a defender out over the top of it to take it away. We then see Howell demonstrate that same footwork as before, shifting his feet back inside on his hitch step to align with McLaurin on his crossing route. Once again he delivers a good ball, but this time McLaurin drops the pass on what should have been a first down conversion.
Another positive from Howell was that he was able to display good timing and anticipation on certain routes.
On this play, Howell looks to find Jahan Dotson on a curl route to his right. His drop back is perhaps a little clunky, but it works well enough to get him into the right position to deliver the ball when he needs to. In fact, he shows great anticipation, beginning his throwing motion well before Dotson makes his break. The ball comes out just as Dotson looks to go into his break, meaning it arrives just after he comes out of the break. That maximizes the separation and gives Dotson a chance to secure the catch before the defender can recover. On top of that, the placement from Howell is great too, hitting Dotson’s outside shoulder and allowing him to turn up the sideline for additional yards after the catch.
Howell wasn’t asked to do a great deal in terms of making complex reads. Turner and the offensive staff did a solid job overall in keeping plays relatively simple for him. Long term they’d obviously need to put more on his plate, but in the short term it allowed him to be successful and show off some of the traits that make him a promising talent.
Here, the Commanders work out of an empty formation with a play they’ve had some nice success with over the last few weeks. To Howell’s right, he has a stick route while to his left, he has Dotson in the slot on a choice route. All Howell has to do is read the middle linebacker and see if he holds position in the middle of the field or attaches to the stick route. In this case, the linebacker immediately opens up to the stick route, telling Howell to work to Dotson on the choice route.
It might not look like a noteworthy throw, but watch the end zone replay angle. As Howell goes to deliver the ball, he gets pressured off the left side. Notice how he naturally drops his arm angle to enable himself to make the throw around the pressure and still hits Dotson in stride to give him a chance to pick up big yards after the catch. Being able to throw off different platforms with different arm angles and still be accurate is a very useful trait to have.
Deep shots
Another big positive from Howell in this game was his ability to attack down the field. He threw two beautiful deep shots down the sideline, one to Dotson and one to McLaurin.
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