What to watch for in Sam Howell's NFL debut
Rookie QB Sam Howell looks set to make his NFL debut for the Commanders this week, here's what to look for in his performance.
The Commanders appear set to give rookie quarterback Sam Howell his NFL debut this weekend. Reports suggest that Taylor Heinicke will start the season finale for Washington, but that the plan is for Howell to play too. With the Commanders now out of playoff contention, an update on Howell’s progression over the course of the season as the third string quarterback is the most interesting thing left for fans to tune in for. It’s important to remember that however Howell does, either good or bad, it won't even be a full game so it shouldn’t make or break an evaluation of him long term.
However, for those looking for something worth watching this weekend, I thought I’d go back to Howell’s preseason film to show some things to look out for as signs of development.
Footwork
One of the big things that stood out to me in preseason was Howell’s struggles with his footwork. In the NFL, quarterbacks match their drops and hitch steps to the timing of routes in a progression. Offensive Coordinator Scott Turner explained as such last week in a question about Carson Wentz.
“A lot of times we’ll say ‘your feet are the clock in your head’. So like we’re supposed to throw this route off one hitch and then the next route is off your second hitch. If you haven’t done that by then, then it’s find the checkdown or throw the ball away. If you’re hanging too long on the route you’re supposed to throw on the first hitch or second hitch, then that's where it gets out of whack.”
In college, footwork was an issue for Howell. Many of his throws in college were off the same style of footwork that allowed him to just catch the ball in the shotgun, take a rock step and then get the ball out. But in preseason with Washington, we saw Howell having to adjust to actual NFL footwork and he struggled.
The first play of this clip shows a mesh-dagger combination. As Howell drops back to throw, he takes a five-step drop followed by two quick hitches, which don’t really time him up with the route he’s looking at. He’s looking to take the dagger route, but it’s not quite there after his second hitch, so he takes a third hitch step to get in sync and deliver the throw. He manages to complete the throw, but the process there is problematic.
On the second play of the clip, Howell’s footwork issue shows up again. He takes what I think is meant to be a five-step drop, but when he gets to his fourth and fifth steps, he ends up just jumping backwards instead. He then takes two quick hitches up in the pocket while looking at the same target. That target actually ends up breaking open on a deep out, but because Howell’s footwork is so poor, he ends up stepping up into pressure and feeling the need to bail out of the pocket. Fortunately he has the mobility and talent to go off-script and make the play work in the end, but again it’s a sign of a bad process and its tough to live purely on off-script plays, especially when the scripted play was there to be made.
On the third and final play of the clip, Howell hits a sail concept to his right, but lets again focus on the footwork. He takes a five-step drop again, but is instantly pressured off the edge so as he hits the fifth step, he’s forced to step up in the pocket to avoid the edge rusher. That’s fine and some teams teach this concept to be a seven-step drop, so the ability to shorten the drop to avoid the pressure is a good thing. However, Howell then takes four hitches steps up in the pocket while eyeing that sail route. None of the hitch steps are particularly consistent in terms of stride length or foot placement. In an ideal world, he’d have a much smoother and more consistent hitch pattern that would allow him to more calmly step up in the pocket and stay in rhythm with the timing of the route.
Now this might seem like I’m being harsh and picky with Howell, particularly as he completed all three throws in the clips I showed, but this is something Ron Rivera and Scott Turner have both mentioned multiple times when asked about Howell. Connecting footwork to reads is a fundamental aspect of playing quarterback in the NFL. If it’s not there consistently, it can lead to significant problems.
On this third and 12 play, Howell looks to find his receiver on a deep out to convert and move the chains. If you watch his footwork from the end zone replay angle, you’ll see a similar five-step drop to one of the plays above. He takes his first three steps backwards and then almost hops back for the last two steps. He then takes a small hitch step that really only moves him an inch or so forward before he pauses and waits for his receiver to break open. His footwork, albeit flawed, should have told him to get the ball out on his hitch step, but because he’s not used to trusting his feet to be his mental clock, he waits an extra beat for the receiver to break open. That extra second is all the defender needs to recover and undercut the route and Howell was lucky that the pass was only broken up and not intercepted.
Footwork will be the most important thing to look out for with Howell to see how he’s developed over the course of the season while working behind the scenes. Watch for the consistency in his drops and look for his head to move from receiver to receiver as he takes each hitch step. If he can show that, that will be an encouraging sign.
Progressing through reads
This is something a lot of young quarterbacks, especially mobile quarterbacks, will get criticized for coming out of college. Many college offenses that start mobile quarterbacks will build their offenses around the run game and use one-read-and-run style passing attacks that allow the quarterback to either get the ball out to his first read or scramble and make the most of his mobility. Howell was stuck with this label because of his mobility and on occasion it was true, but he showed he was capable of working through his progressions when asked.
The Commanders certainly asked him to work through multiple progressions in preseason and he proved up to the task.
Here, the Commanders call for one of Scott Turner’s staple concepts, the sail concept. It’s a three-level flood concept to one side of the field, with a deep post occupying the deep defenders, a flat route occupying the underneath defenders and a third receiver running the sail route in between the other two. On the back side, there is a basic cross, breaking over the middle as a fourth option.
The Panthers defend the sail concept perfectly. The safety stays on top of the deep post, allowing the outside corner to peel off the post route and attach to the sail route. The underneath defenders take care of the flat route from the tight end, which means all three options are covered. That forces Howell to work through the progression and read out the play. With nothing open to his right, Howell works back across the middle to find his receiver breaking inside from the left. He delivers a nice throw over the middle and completes the pass for a big gain.
Later on in the preseason, Howell showed the ability to read out concepts differently based on the coverage the defense played.
These two plays come from the preseason game against the Ravens. The first play of the clip combines a smash concept to the right side of the field with a follow concept to the left. The smash concept attempts to put an outside zone corner in a bind by showing him an underneath receiver to bite up on while the slot receiver runs a corner route behind him. The follow concept has a tight end or slot receiver run a basic cross with the outside receiver running a delayed under route behind it.
Howell snaps the ball and immediately works the smash concept to his right. He checks the corner on the outside, who attaches to the under route suggesting man coverage. Howell then checks the corner route from his slot receiver but that’s well covered. He progresses inside to the basic cross from his tight end, but the Ravens take that away too.
The Ravens then manage to get some pressure on Howell, forcing him to step up in the pocket to avoid the rush. As he steps up, he spots his delayed under route in space, but can’t really create the right angle to make that throw and also sees the defense closing in around that route. So instead, Howell works to his fifth read, the running back on a swing route out of the backfield. With everyone closing in on the under route, Howell flips the ball out to the back who has plenty of room to run down the sideline and pick up a first down.
The second play of the clip is the exact same concept, but flipped the other way, so that the smash concept is run to the left of Howell instead of the right and the follow concept is on the right side instead of the left. As he snaps the ball, Howell again works to the smash concept. The Ravens are in zone coverage, but the outside corner stays deep, negating the chance of hitting the deeper corner route from the slot receiver. Howell spots the corner signaling to the flat defender to take the under route from the outside receiver and he understands that the smash concept has no chance on this play, so he decisively moves on his progression. He quickly resets his feet back to the right side, where he spots his tight end breaking behind an underneath zone defender. Howell pulls the trigger and finds his tight end for another strong gain.
Those plays are very encouraging signs for Howell’s chances of developing into a productive NFL quarterback. Showing he can read out the same play against multiple types of coverages means he fully understands the concept and where to go with the ball in each scenario. In Scott Turner’s system, which uses only a handful of concepts but disguises them with various formations and motions, this ability to read out the same concept against different coverages is key. Look for more of this type of play from Howell against the Cowboys, where he might be running the same concepts but having to read them out differently depending on how the defense reacts.
Learning lessons
Something I particularly enjoyed from watching Howell in preseason was that you could see him learning lessons as the game progressed. There was one particular example that stood out to me against the Ravens in the final preseason game.
This clip shows the Ravens sending the same blitz after Howell at different points in the game. On the first play of the clip, the Commanders have their offensive line sliding to the left side, but the Ravens are sending two rushers off the right side. This leaves the right tackle having to pick between two rushers. He smartly takes the linebacker rushing inside with the more direct path to the quarterback, leaving Howell responsible for the free rusher off the edge.
Howell looks to throw hot to his running back in the flat, but spots a defender ready to make a tackle for a minimal gain. So instead, Howell pulls the ball and steps up in the pocket to avoid the free rusher after getting him to jump to defend the pass. Howell then takes off scrambling, but ends up getting tackled at about the line of scrimmage, in a similar spot to where the running back would have caught his pass.
In the second play of this clip, the Ravens circle back to the same blitz, but Howell appears to recognize it and learns his lesson from before. Howell processes the blitz much quicker this time and makes the correct decision to throw hot to his running back in the flat as quickly as possible. Howell does a great job getting the throw out before taking a big hit and he’s rewarded for his efforts as the back makes the catch and then turns up the sideline, avoiding the trailing defender and diving for the pylon to complete the touchdown.
When you can see a quarterback actively learning lessons in game, be it adjusting to a blitz or a certain coverage rotation the defense might be throwing at him, that’s a positive sign for his development. That’s something to keep in mind in the Cowboys game. If Howell has a negative play early on, can he bounce back and learn his lesson later in the game?
Arm talent
I’ll wrap up looking at Howell’s most impressive trait, his arm talent. Howell has the ability to naturally drive the ball down the field with a great deal of velocity. Having that arm talent can often lead to quarterbacks being overhyped and missing out on more important traits, like footwork and being able to work through progressions. But if Howell can show some progression in those other areas, then his arm talent gives him a chance to make it in the NFL.
There are three throws in this clip that show how well Howell can drive the ball to all levels of the field. The first throw comes on third and short where Howell finds Dyami Brown on a deep over route. He takes his drop, slides naturally to his left to avoid some pressure before delivering a strike to Brown over the middle for a first down. The second throw comes on one of Scott Turner’s favorite concepts: dagger. This is a particularly nice throw from Howell because he anticipates the receiver breaking open behind the underneath defenders, who get decent depth in their drops. He spots them attaching to the shallow cross underneath and fires in behind them to the dig route for a big gain.
The final throw of the clip comes on another one of Turner’s most common concepts: four verticals. The Ravens try to disguise their coverage, showing one deep safety at the snap before rotating back to two deep safeties after the snap. With two deep safeties, the read changes from the inside seams to the outside go routes. Howell quickly adjusts and spots his receiver to his right running by his cornerback. He shows incredible velocity and placement to drive his throw on a rope and hit his receiver before the safety has a chance to get over the top of the route.
Howell’s arm talent isn’t the most important thing to look out for in this coming game, but it’s probably the thing that will stand out the most, particularly if he’s able to hit a few throws down the field. In a game that the Commanders have nothing to play for, perhaps that arm talent will at least provide some entertainment for Washington fans.
Interesting. Do you think he should play the whole game?
Agree but as long as it's not Wentz or Fromm I'm good.