You can talk about who needs to step up for the Commanders this weekend, but you need a caveat: given the Giants' proclivity towards blitzing, the offensive line as a whole is going to need to be on their games to keep Sam Howell upright and his record-pace sack total from going too far up.
BMitch & Finlay actually asked that question on Friday: how is Howell going to handle that Giants blitz, given his tendencies?
"You want to see Sam take the things he's done, and improve upon them," Brian said.
JP asked Eric Bieniemy about how he sees things during Thursday's press conference, and in essence, it's on Sam to go out and deliver.
"I do not worry about Sam's cognizance of the problem. I believe he's aware and understands the issue right now, but awareness and execution are different things," JP said. "The execution may take time, and my question was about reminding Sam to speed it up – and EB basically said you could talk to him until you're blue in the face, watch film together, etc., but the kid is still a kid, and he's discovering how to become a professional football player at this level."
It's not perfect, but as Bieniemy noted, when Howell does make mistakes, he learns from them and shows improvement – and Sam needs to do that early and often against this team.
"I think it's possible Sam has a big day because he knows the blitz is on against Wink Martindale, and because of that, he'll approach this thing differently where the internal clock to him needs to be double time," JP said.
"If the blitz comes and your line picks it up, you don't wanna be just throwing something somewhere when you shouldn't," Brian replied. "So, he needs to speed his clock up, and he knows Wink likes to blitz, so he'll be ready – but what id Wink Martindale don't blitz but makes you think he is, and then some of the linemen drop out and you throw the ball into a spot and somebody is sitting there? You still have to read whatever's in front of you."
Take a listen to the entire convo above!
