After Thursday’s game, when Sam Howell’s sack total for the season went up to 29 in five games – still on pace for 100 – left tackle Charles Leno Jr. had this to say about the level of concern they have about the amount of hits Howell is taking this year:
“Yeah, I actually am worried especially late in the game when the game is already out of hand. I feel like that should not happen. We should take a different route in that aspect, but that's what the coaches want and they want to show fight. We want to show fight and want to put some points on the board and show that we're not quitting for anybody, but there does need to be a little bit of smarts involved in that. We need him for the whole season, not just for a game that's out of hand already, in my opinion.”
Grant Paulsen wanted to bring it up Tuesday because it just hadn’t gone away, and to him, it suggests one of two things:
“Either that Sam Howell shouldn't have been in the game taking shots late because they should have just gone to Jacoby Brissett in a blowout, which I, I stopped short of that because they were a missed field goal away from being within seven late,” Grant said, “but maybe his point is that last drive where the game is lost and he got hit and sacked a few more times, he shouldn't have been in there – but the other question I have: is he talking about run versus pass here?”
Grant re-read part of the quote, which made him think that the latter might be the real thing to read between the lines, and because Leno is a veteran leader, “I just thought that wasn't nothing.”
“That is a non-zero situation there, and here’s what that sounds like to me: when it’s a blowout, like against Buffalo, what are we doing letting him get his clock cleaned again and again?” Danny said. “I’m with him, I think he’s 100 percent right.”
“So you think it’s a play-calling critique, not that it should have been Jacoby Brissett?” Grant replied. “Like, the first time I read this last week, I thought he was talking about the play calling, but the more I've read it, I actually think he's saying maybe that they should have just put Jacoby Brissett in at the end of the game and let him take the shots. In other words, you only get so many of those as a young guy before you start to play the game a little bit differently.”
Grant calls that “the Patrick Ramsey Effect,” so he understands keeping a young QB from getting unnecessary fire by any means necessary, but still thinks Leno meant is was by removing Howell from the game.
“I think it’s six of one, half a dozen of the other – and what I mean is whatever we’re doing is stupid,” Danny said. “Like in other words, if he's getting popped, then get him out of the game or let's check it down or hand it off to somebody. Let’s not have am just continue to beat his head against the wall to do some kind of machismo to make it slightly closer.”
Danny hates that notion, which is “not about winning the game anymore,” and invoked Daniel Jones, who is now injured, getting clobbered late in the Giants’ season-opening blowout loss to Dallas, and the Greg Schiano “concuss somebody on the kneel down” mentality – and what is the cost?
“I understand you want to keep competing, that’s all well and good, but Leno’s point is 100 percent correct,” Danny said. “It’s just, I don't know how to say this exactly the right way and I'm not saying that there's huge discord or people are pointing fingers or whatever, but it's a sign where guys are looking around going, ‘are we sure this is the right thing to do?’ And even that is a story in and of itself.”
Take a listen to the whole discussion above!