After pulling quarterback Sam Howell in the second half of back-to-back games, Ron Rivera had finally decided to make a more permanent change to veteran Jacoby Brissett for the Week 17 game against the San Francisco 49ers.
"We're going to go forward and have Jacoby as our starter," the Washington Commanders head coach said Wednesday morning. "I think it's probably a good opportunity for Sam to take a break. This is about Sam's continued development, and things haven't gone as well as we'd have liked the last few weeks, so we just think this is a good opportunity for him to watch."
That decision was expected, but the announcement of a change was not without a few firey reactions, including from Team 980's Craig Hoffman, who began his show on Wednesday afternoon with a few main points on the fourth-year head coach's decision to bench the second-year quarterback.
The first point: The benching of Howell was "an organizational failure."
"This team failed to set up for a successful season, any number of ways, from day one," he continued, before adding taking a step back and a bird's eye view that "this is the absolute best thing to happen to this organization in terms of the complete and total failure. If you're going to fail, make it so that there's no doubt. Make it so that there are zero questions. Make it so that your owner has an easy decision to move on from everyone.
"No tough ones, no consternation, no nothing. This is the cleanest of clean breaks that is coming after this season. And good because there's no reason to keep anybody."
Hoffman said that there are a few good coaches on the Commanders' staff – like running backs coach Randy Jordan, who worked under multiple head coaches – but "move on from basically everybody" including the coordinator, head coach and the general manager.
"They have failed from go," Hoffman said.
He continued: "They chose not to prioritize the offensive line. And they chose in the draft to pick defensive backs in the first two picks instead of creating a better situation for Sam Howell. I don't think choosing Sam Howell was an inevitable way to fail. I think Sam proved that there was something there. And whether it still is or has been beaten out of him we're gonna see over the long term...
"But on an organizational standpoint, they went into a season with a roster not built to support this young quarterback. And then an approach from Eric Bieniemy that is an all-time bad idea. You went into a season with a quarterback with a sack problem, who doesn't see over the field well, who – list all of Sam's flaws here – and you asked him to throw the ball, drop back, more than any other quarterback in the league. And as a head coach, Ron Rivera never stepped in with enough force... to ever get it fixed."
Listen to the full take on the audio player above.
