Rick Snider wrote in his latest column for Audacy DC that it might not be a bad idea for the Commanders to sit Sam Howell Sunday against the Jets for a mental reset, given that Ron Rivera seems to intimate it was mental protection as to why Howell was pulled against the Rams.
Eric Bickel likes that theory, thinking Sam can benefit from it – and referenced how Spencer Carbery admitted some of the Capitals have gotten a mental day off this year – and Rick's theory is that you never know with Ron Rivera, but if the bye week didn't help Sam Howell, what can?
"One of the distressing things about Rivera this season is he talks out of both sides all the time," Snider said. "Oh, Sam should finish this game because he can learn something. Oh, Emmanuel needs a reset. At this point anything goes. I do think that he would benefit; he's just been steadily going down, just like the team around him, for like five weeks now, and it's like, you need to take a breath, because you're better than this. But, the bye week didn't make a difference like that, and you wonder if he plays himself out of a job if we have three more really bad ones."
EB, JP, and Rick all seem to agree that even if they win a game over the final few weeks and end up in the Top 6 or 7, quarterback might be the pick, but one thinks one week now might not matter?
"This happens all the time in sports, we just don't want to say it with quarterbacks," Snider said, but JP had a warning: "Guys who are in Howell's position, sometimes they get benched, they come back and the results are going to be similar, and we're seeing that in Atlanta."
EB thinks Howell is better than a lot of the mid-level backup comparisons he's getting, but where does Snider see him now?
"It hasn't changed a whole lot overall from what I thought originally," Snider said. "I think Sam Howell on his best season might be around No. 10 in the league, and his worst season in the low-20s, but most seasons he'll be 15 to 18."
Okay, so a top half QB most of the time in a league where 14 teams make the playoffs?
"One of the things that we used to notice about rookies, and he's basically a rookie, is they would tail off after Thanksgiving because they were so used to high school and college playing until then," Snider said. "It's changed a bit because the great teams now play 15 games in college, but when they were 10 or 12, we noticed that difference, and I don't know if maybe he's just wearing out. He's only been sacked 59 times, so that's gotten better, but maybe he's just worn down like the whole team seems to be."
JP also made the argument that more film means teams can see Sam's tendencies more an dhe's facing tougher defenses, so the game is speeding up so to speak – and Rick added in that the offense itself seems to be 'gone.'
"What happened there? The thing with Bieniemy is that in August, everyone was yelling for him to be the head coach, and now everybody wants to run him out of town on a rail," Snider said. "It's RG3 all over again.
I think it was worth trying him…I don't think he'll be here three weeks from now, but I wouldn't say it was a failure overall, and there's some things I like about him a lot."
Take a listen to Snider's entire segment above, which also touches on coordinators being the head coach's heavy, the number of HC openings we could have in three weeks, how Bieniemy might fare in interviewing for those jobs and who Washington might look at, and more!
