Sam Howell looks to get the first crack at starting at quarterback for the Commanders, making him one of the lowest-drafted of the 32 starters (if not the lowest, pending Brock Purdy’s status.”
To Pro Football Focus draft analyst Trevor Sikkema though, that ain’t nothing but a number, because he told the Sports Junkies Monday that Sam is way better than his fifth-round pedigree.
“I said there’s no way he should’ve been a fifth-round pick; that’s crazy to me because he’s way better than that,” Sikkema said. “When that happened, you look back to how we got there, and you look at his freshman and sophomore seasons where he threw the ball a lot more because the situation was different. That third season, the offense completely changed, and they needed him to run the ball a lot more because he didn’t have the weapons, so he slipped a little bit.”
Sikkema expects that the Commanders are getting more of the early Howell as an NFL projection, and not the guy who had to be the whole offense his third season at North Carolina.
“When you project him to the NFL level, the Sam Howell as a freshman and sophomore was the future we’d get at the NFL level,” Sikkema said.
“I can’t believe he lasted that long, even in a down QB class that year which forced everyone down the board a bit. I think Washington got a good bet to make with getting him in the fifth round.”
So, if Howell had waited another year to come out, and 2022 was a similar year to his first two at UNC, where might he have gone?
“I’d probably have him somewhere around where I had Will Levis, which is QB4,” Sikkema said. “I had him in that tier with Levis and Anthony Richardson, who got drafted a lot higher than I thought he would have, based on my rankings. But, I think Howell could’ve been an early Day 2 pick. There was a big disconnect between what he did at UNC and where he was drafted.”
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That’s where EB jumped in and noted that in prevailing draft calculus, it’s easy to downplay a fifth-round pick because that means the league passed on him four or more times – but with a QB, it’s worth noting that Purdy was a seventh-rounder, Kirk Cousins was a fourth-rounder who usurped a job here from a No. 2 pick, and the arguable GOAT was taken No. 199 overall, so it may not be that simple.
“I think when you talk about draft pick versus projected success, it goes into patience more than anything else,” Sikkema said. “A first-round pick quarterback has a lot of guaranteed money dumped into them, and they have the hype, so you give them time if they struggle early on. When you get picked later, there’s nothing saying you can’t make it, but you often don’t get that kind of time. Everyone knew this wasn’t a typical fifth-round pick, and that’s why I think you see so much faith in him.”
All that said, though, this season is different for the Commanders – for if they, and Howell, struggle out of the gate and those struggles are sustained into October and even November, it may be too late to save him just based on the new ownership situation.
“You sign a guy in Jacoby Brissett because he has a high floor and can come in and be competent and win games,” Sikkema said. “If Howell works out, you have the ability to do a lot of different things, and maybe Ron Rivera has some job security. However, if Howell starts to falter, you can’t get 10 weeks into the season and then decide to make the switch, because Ron might already be on the way out.”
Sikkema also weighed in on why he gave the Commanders a B for their overall draft - take a listen to it all above!
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