The Washington Commanders are entering the 2023 NFL season with the best roster they have had during head coach Ron Rivera's tenure. But, like the previous three offseasons, the starting quarterback for Week 1 is known (this time it is second-year man Sam Howell), but whether that person works out remains a giant question mark.
Kevin Sheehan was joined by Ben Standig to talk about a recent story about how much faith the Commanders' brass has expressed in Howell as the starter, why the folks in Ashburn seem to love talking so much about their decision-making process, and if they truly believe how much the Commanders believe that they have found a long-term answer at QB?
Can we buy that the football people in Washington have come consensus that Howell is the guy for the next five years?
"Um... I don't, I don't know how that would be possible," Standig told Sheehan. "This is why people were so incredulous during free agency and the draft that Washington would put all their eggs in the Sam Howell basket. I don't think they are. Jacoby Brissett is here. And you can say whatever you want about Jacoby Brissett, 1) I would argue on paper he'll be the best quarterback they've had in the Ron Rivera era, 2) he was given more money than any of the other guys we were talking about your Andy Dalton, Baker Mayfield, everybody else in that sort of spot-starter/backup category. So they have a pretty decent failsafe here.
"If they had kept Taylor Heinicke, then I actually would buy more the Sam Howell thing because it's clear they don't see Heinicke as that guy.... So I think there's intrigue with Howell, just from the moment this all came out it's so bizarre because we know the situation. Even if Sam Howell is the guy for the next five to ten years, is he gonna be the guy for the next five to ten games next season when Ron Rivera probably needs a winning record and maybe a playoff berth to sick around and avoid a fourth consecutive non--winning season? I don't know."
Standig said the one part that is frustaing about the story is that if Washington was so high on Howell out of the draft, with anywhere from a second round grade to some with a first, did they pass on him and risk losing him until the 5th round?
"The revisionist history on the draft last year is just laughable," Sheehan said. "It's so easy to kind of expose them and this conversation... it's just laughable to think this is a guy that they had such a high grade on and wanted so much [after passing on him so many times in the draft]."
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