After going through a long list of things he liked from the Washington Commanders' 35-33 win over the Denver Broncos in Week 2 on Sunday, Kevin Sheehan finally gets to his assessment of quarterback Sam Howell's performance in the first road game of his NFL career.
"How much of a big-time throw was that one?" Sheehan said of Howell's touchdown throw to Terry McLaurin which tied the game. "He has the arm... he has the mobility, we know that, and he has many of those intangibles that you look for: he's tough; he's smart; he's fearless. And through two legitimate NFL starts – where the games really matter – he just looks the part of an NFL quarterback. Not going nuts here, Arizona and Denver in these first two games, and he wasn't that great against Arizona, made some good plays and made some bad plays, too.
"But he looks so much better than anything they've had here, certainly in the last two years. He's got the arm that they haven't had here in two years. He makes all the throws. Does he always throw accurately? Does he always throw with great anticipation? No. But he's got the strength to get it there."
In the game, Howell completed 27 of 39 of his passes (69.2 percent) for 299 yards (7.7 yards per attempt) with two TDs for a 63.2 QBR and 108.8 passer rating. He was sacked four times for a total of 33 yards lost.
"He makes plays off-schedule," Sheehan continued. "...he made some good decisons to throw the ball away [Sunday]."
There were so many throws and plays from the second-year passer making his first-career NFL start on the road that Sheehan just had to go through them one by one to make sure everyone could have a complete picture of his performance.
There were a few throws that weren't great – with a few throws early that were deflected – and Sheehan noted this could become a strategy from opponents: Keep Howell in the pocket and shutdown passing lines with defensive lineman getting their hands up. Howell also held onto the ball for too long a few times again, but "he was better this week" on that, Sheehan said.
While he can't be compared to the top-tier quarterbacks in the game yet, Sheehan said, "But what he is proving through the first two games is that there is something there to continue with. And he's making plays that give them a chance."
Sheehan grades Howell as an A- as "he was one of the reasons they had a chance to win the game."
After going over all of that, Sheehan then went into the list of things from the win that he did not like from the game. Take a listen to the full segment on the audio player above!