Ahead of one of the most important games in his time as head coach in Washington on Sunday, Ron Rivera spoke to the media on Tuesday and addressed one elephant in the room: how the Arizona Cardinals, the Commanders' Week 1 opponent, might be the worst team in the league by some distance. But the thing that first caught the eye of Kevin Sheehan was Rivera's comments about the new offense and starting quarterback Sam Howell.
"I would say Sam wants to be coached, he wants to be critiqued," Rivera said. "And like any other player, the occasional pat on the back is always a good thing. I mean, he'll take it as it comes and that's one of the things, I think that has been great about him and a lot of his teammates, most of his teammates, all of his teammates for that matter. They appreciated being pushed. They appreciated being critiqued. They appreciate being praised.
"It goes back to if you tell people what. they need to hear and not what they want to hear, you're better off and I think that's what our guys have really appreciated this year."
Sheehan sees the theme of "coachability" as a constant for Howell from the beginning this offseason when they slapped the "QB1" label on the young quarterback.
"[Washington] has just had some issues at quarterback with coachability, with maturity," Sheehan said. "And that can be an incredible roadblock. Especially if you're inexperienced as Dwanye [Haskins] was or if you are really struggling to get back to where you were talent-wise or skill-wise from a few years ago because of injuries like Carson Wentz was. That is something that when teams are deciding on players, especially on players at that position, it's all the stuff that we don't know before the draft.
"And that is all the intangibles. All the things that get revealed through due diligence, through interviews with coaches, with teammates... and then in their own interviews with the players. I mean rest assured, based on what everybody has said publicly and privately, Sam Howell is a good dude and very coachable."
Rivera also spoke about how he wants the new offense to be unveiled throughout the season and said that offensive coordinator Eric Bieniemy "is going to do it the way he thinks is best."
"That's what he did in the preseason games," Rivera said. "He had an idea of how he wanted each game to look. He had specific plays he wanted to use for each game and he wanted to make sure the guys were very comfortable and they would play fast.
"I really believe that's going to be his attitude coming into this game is things that we do well against what they do, he's going to implement into the game plan. I promise you if you asked him one of the first things, he's gonna say is 'I want them to play fast.'"
Sheehan said the hallmarks of teams that may not have a top-tier quarterback, the best offenses line up and do what the opponent doesn't do well against.
"You wanna see really good game planning and really good play calling because it is difference-making," Sheehan said. "Especially for teams that don't necessarily have overwhelming advantages at the most important positions on the field, and we don't know if they'll have that at quarterback. We don't know that at this point, maybe they will, maybe it will all come down to 'it doesn't really matter what they don't do well or what we don't do well, we got an elite quarterback with elite playmakers.'"
There is one main point that Sheehan sees many understimating is the importance of the Commanders run game. Listen for that key detail in the full segment on the audio player above!
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